Avalon Recovery Society

Avalon Recovery Society creates community for women seeking freedom from addiction, empowering them to thrive. We do this by accepting women at any place on the recovery continuum, encouraging self-awareness, change and growth, enabling self-care, demonstrating integrity, accountability, honesty and respect, being an enduring presence in women’s lives and ensuring our services are accessible to all women.

Avalon Recovery Society operates three drop-in Avalon Women's Centres in the Lower Mainland. Here, women can access safe, welcoming meeting spaces for addiction support, free childcare, drop-in hours, resource libraries and a clothing closet.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit we have had to amend our services, which included implementing the use of virtual services to our support activities, providing a full meeting schedule of Zoom and telephone meetings, as well as telephone drop-in support, empowering online workshops and free virtual one-on-one counselling.

After transitioning to virtual meetings, Avalon quickly saw an increase in demand from women who were reaching out for addiction support for the first time. This demand resulted in a new project, AvalOnline. This project meets a need for free, low-barrier addiction support services that are accessible for women wherever they are.

By helping women to access addiction support and feel like part of a community within their own home, we are helping them stay safe while building their recovery capital and helping them live a better, healthier life for themselves and their families. We must invest in these capabilities now so we can be there for the many women who are struggling with their mental health and developing substance use issues during this challenging time.