Who is the day actually for?

Both groups. The organizers describe it as a movement for the woman who has struggled with addiction firsthand and for any woman who has felt its effects through someone else.

Is this the same thing as National Recovery Month?

No, they are separate. National Recovery Month runs through September and is marked by presidential proclamation; this day falls on July 23 and carries no federal designation.

Why is it held on July 23?

The date has held since Mending Hearts staged the first observance on 23 July 2021, and the second year kept it. No published source explains why that particular date was chosen.

National Women Touched By Addiction Day

Next celebratedFriday, July 23, 2027

The year this July 23 observance first ran, federal statisticians counted 32,398 American women dead of drug overdose, close to 89 a day. Its organizers ask for one raised finger, for the women who used and the ones who watched.

See how to celebrate

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Last updated September 6, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATEJuly 23

OBSERVED INUnited States

CATEGORYAwareness

SUBCATEGORYMental Health

ORIGIN

Institutional Initiative

FOUNDING ENTITY

Mending Hearts, Inc.

FIRST OBSERVED

2021

“Mending Hearts had been running for seventeen years before it created the day.

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

The organization made the day for the women it already treated.

Mending Hearts, a Nashville residential treatment program for women, created the observance and held the first one on 23 July 2021 on the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge. The organization says it made the day to combat the stigma its clients and their families deal with daily.

Read the organizers' pagevia Mending Hearts, Inc.

INTRO

Its first year was women's deadliest in two decades

National Women Touched by Addiction Day first ran in 2021. Federal statisticians have since counted 32,398 American women dead of drug overdose that year, close to 89 a day. No year in the two decades they report was worse, though 2022 came within one percent of it.

The day does not stop at the women who used. Its stated reach is any woman who has felt addiction through someone else, and that reach is the whole point of the name.

What the organizers ask for is small enough to do from a phone. In their own words, "lifting just one finger shows your support for an entire community of women."

ORIGINS

Women Touched By Addiction Day history

INTRODUCTION

Trina Frierson started with what she had. In 2002 she began picking up women as they left prison in Nashville, and the first one slept on her couch. By her third year she was running four houses scattered across the city.

She was not working from theory. Frierson had lived with addiction, moved through periods of homelessness and incarceration, and lost custody of her children. She built the program around resources she had struggled to find for her own recovery.

CHAPTER 01

The refusal at the center of the program

Mending Hearts was established in 2004, and the IRS issued its 501(c)(3) ruling that November. The organization is state licensed and CARF accredited, and it has grown to two Nashville campuses.

Its central commitment is a refusal. Women are treated "regardless of their ability to pay," and the average stay runs three to six months against the thirty days typical of residential rehab.

The population explains some of that length. SAMHSA's federal protocol on treating women reports that roughly two-thirds of those entering treatment have reported a history of sexual violence.

CHAPTER 02

A day added long after the program

The record caught it half finished. The day's page went up on the Mending Hearts site on 9 June 2021, and the earliest archived copy still reads "Here will have links to several sites" where the education section belongs.

Six weeks later it was real. On 23 July 2021 the public was invited onto the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge at seven in the evening for speakers and live music. Frierson, the journalist Demetria Kalodimos and former Nashville mayor Megan Barry were billed to speak.

The education half went to the Vanderbilt Center for Addiction Research, whose own outreach page carries a trailer for a filmed conversation on incarceration and addiction. For the second year the organizers announced a walk at Public Square in front of the courthouse rather than a gathering on the bridge.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why National Women Touched by Addiction Day Matters

RECOGNITION

Nearly all untreated women did not think they needed treatment.

SAMHSA's 2023 national survey found that nearly all women with a substance use disorder who went untreated did not believe they needed treatment. Among female adults who did think they had ever had a substance use problem, 72.9 percent considered themselves recovering or in recovery.

CUSTODY

The fear of losing children keeps women out

The National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that many women who are pregnant or have young children do not seek treatment, or leave it early, because they cannot arrange care for their children. It adds that they may also fear that authorities will remove those children.

MEDICINE

Women arrive sicker after less time using

NIDA finds that women show a quicker progression from first using a substance to developing dependence than men do. They therefore enter treatment with more severe medical, behavioral, psychological and social problems despite shorter histories of use.

TIMELINE

Timeline

One woman on a couch

Trina Frierson took in her first woman leaving prison in Nashville, the informal start of what became Mending Hearts.

IRS grants nonprofit status

Mending Hearts was established in Nashville, and the IRS issued its 501(c)(3) ruling in November of that year.

The day's page goes up

A page for the observance appeared on the Mending Hearts site on 9 June, six weeks out and still carrying placeholder text where the education links belonged.

First observance on the bridge

The inaugural National Women Touched by Addiction Day was held on 23 July on the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge in Nashville.

Second year announced as a walk

Mending Hearts announced an awareness walk at Public Square in front of the courthouse, with a $115,000 fundraising goal.

Overdose deaths fall sharply

Women's age-adjusted drug overdose death rate fell 23.0 percent in a single year, the largest annual decrease in the decade NCHS examined.

BY THE NUMBERS

National Women Touched by Addiction Day by the Numbers

24,308: Women's US overdose deaths, 2024
+596%: Women's prescription opioid deaths, 1999-2016
10.8M: US adult women, substance use plus mental illness
7,500: Women treated by Mending Hearts

Every individual soul on this planet with their feet on the earth came through the canal of a woman. If we build up the women, if we strengthen the women, we break all the generational curses.

Trina FriersonFounder, Mending Hearts

GET INVOLVED

How to Observe National Women Touched by Addiction Day

Raise one finger and say who it is for

Photograph a single raised finger and post it with the reason, using the organizers' tags #WTBAday and #OneFingerOneFamily. They ask people to share a testimony alongside it.

WATCH

Watch what Vanderbilt made for the day

The Vanderbilt Center for Addiction Research partnered with the organizers to explain the science behind substance use disorders and how they affect women. Its outreach page carries a trailer for a filmed conversation on incarceration and addiction.

READ

Read what the federal research says about women

NIDA's research report on substance use in women is the federal evidence base for how the same disorder differs by sex. Read it before the next conversation you have about a woman in treatment.

CHECK

Check on the woman carrying someone else's addiction

A woman living with someone else's addiction is inside this day's stated scope. Ask her how she is doing, and be prepared for the answer to take a while.

GIVE

Give to a residential recovery program for women

Pick a program in your own state and find out what it costs there to keep one woman housed for a month. Give toward that figure rather than a general fund.

GET INVOLVED

Resources and Support

SAMHSA's National Helpline

SAMHSA's National Helpline. Free, confidential treatment referral in English and Spanish, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

MENDING

Mending Hearts, Inc.

Mending Hearts, Inc.. The Nashville organization behind the observance, and its own page explaining who the day is for.

Answer

No. It is an observance created and run by a private nonprofit, and a full-text search of the Federal Register returns no federal proclamation, act or resolution naming it, though that search did not extend to state legislatures or city halls.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

16sources

14primary records

12independently dated

Primary records

Mending Hearts, Inc.

Women Touched By Addiction

The organizers explain who the day is for, the raised-finger gesture and the campaign tags.

National Women Touched By Addiction Day

Institutional Initiative

The organization made the day for the women it already treated.

The refusal at the center of the program

A day added long after the program

The fear of losing children keeps women out

Women arrive sicker after less time using

One woman on a couch

IRS grants nonprofit status

The day's page goes up

First observance on the bridge

Second year announced as a walk

Overdose deaths fall sharply

Raise one finger and say who it is for

Watch what Vanderbilt made for the day

Read what the federal research says about women

Check on the woman carrying someone else's addiction

Give to a residential recovery program for women

SAMHSA's National Helpline

Mending Hearts, Inc.

Is National Women Touched by Addiction Day a public holiday?

Who is the day actually for?

Is this the same thing as National Recovery Month?

Why is it held on July 23?

Related holidays

International Overdose Awareness Day

National Opioid Awareness Day

Hug an Addict or Alcoholic Day

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