Southwest Recovery Harm Reduction Alliance

10/06/2026

Thank you to everyone who came out for Community Night! What a heartfelt night!

We had an impactful conversation about methadone with Irene Garnett from NOPAL Initiative. We heard powerful stories and experiences about the lack of access to methadone (the gold standard for treating opioid use disorder) and the ways that access can imporve a person's life and the importance of choice and person centerd care.

Thank you to everyone who shared, listened, asked questions, and helped us undo stigma through shared experiences, conversation, building community and sharing space with new friends and old friends.

Lastly, thank you for showing up, dreaming of a better world together, and helping make that dream tangible one conversation at a time and one harm redux kit packed at a time.

Also, big shout out to Nopal Initiative and Irene Garnett for taking about methadone with us.

09/24/2026

Don't miss our next Community Night, Monday, October 5th 6pm-8pm.

Our friend Irene Garnett from NOPAL Initiative is chatting with us about medication-assisted treatment as harm reduction, access, and barriers from the perspective of a person with methadone experience. As usual, the education component of Community Night will be followed by kit packing.

We need your help packing kits.

Come share space with us, learn something new, and volunteer to pack kits. There will be snacks and drinks. Let's make an impact together.

Hope to see you there!

First UCC Church Phx
6-8pm classroom 5
1407 N. 2nd St

09/18/2026

We miss you Chris Abert. Its been two long, long years without you.

SWRA still out here loving on folx and fighting for our community the way you modeled for us.

Thank you for the mission, the lessons, the advocacy, and the call to action for ungovernable love for people who use drugs that left here in AZ and many other places.

SWRA LOVES YOU, PERIOD, CHRIS.

09/14/2026

Today, September 14th, is S*x Worker Pride Day!

Today, let's honor and give flowers to the often overlooked contributions of s*x workers to our community, economy, and especially the harm reduction movement.

Tip the hoes extra today and remember s*x work always has been and will continue to be a legitimate choice of labor.

Happy S*x Worker Pride Day.

09/11/2026

We are excited and honored to have our ED, Arlene Mahoney, speak about SWRA’s peer-led harm reduction work at the VEN Centers Doing It In The Desert (DID) conference next weekend in Phoenix! There is still time to register. We hope to see you there!

Doing it in the Desert: Viral Hepatitis & STI Elimination Summit 2026 Speaker Spotlight: Arlene Mahoney ⭐

Arlene Mahoney is the Executive Director of Southwest Recovery Alliance (SWRA). SWRA is a community-based harm reduction organization based in Phoenix, Arizona. Since 2019, SWRA has been implementing a syringe service program, utilizing a peer-led model of service delivery. Co-located within SWRA’s syringe service program is free rapid HIV and hepatitis C screening. Arlene has been working to advance, address, and support drug user health for over 7 years. She holds a master's degree in social work and is passionate about mutual aid, overdose and disease prevention, and community-engaged research, in part because of the ethic of punishment she received rather than an ethic of care as a person who exercised their bodily autonomy outside normative standards.

Her experience of structural violence and stigma while engaging in a health-promoting behavior (seeking sterile syringes) and the adverse health outcomes that resulted from the barriers to access continues to shape her work while also bolstering her commitment to systems and practice change. Operationalizing her need for change, she has contributed to multiple peer-reviewed publications grounded in community-based participatory action research and is currently a Co-Investigator on a national trial focused on improving methadone treatment quality and patient outcomes. She serves as community co-chair of the Drug Policy Drug Research Advocacy and Policy Board (DPRAB) at the Harm Reduction Research Lab and is a member of the executive committee of Hep Free AZ .

At , Arlene will share how Southwest Recovery Harm Reduction Alliance's harm reduction program is improving access to lifesaving services through a peer-led model.

We're honored to welcome Arlene to this year's conference and look forward to the insight and experience she'll bring to this important discussion.

Join us this September to hear from Arlene and other leaders advancing viral hepatitis, HIV, and STI care.

Secure your spot today ➡️ https://bit.ly/4pVXknC

09/03/2026

Breaking out of silos, building power, learning, and growing together, united. Our Arizona harm reduction community is truly beautiful; the love, fight, and care we have for people who use drugs and for each other is something beyond special. Grateful to be in community with other harm reductionists.

08/31/2026

08/31/2026

Today, August 31st, is International Awareness Day (IOAD). On IOAD, we remember those we’ve lost. We hold their stories and memories close to our hearts (and always) and share them with those around us. We create vigils, light candles, print pictures, and read names. We cry together, and laugh together, and feel the ache so deep in our bones that the ones we love aren't here. This we do today, but the emptiness of that preventable death is always there just under the surface in all we do.

We know what saves lives. We know what prevents overdose deaths. And we refuse to accept preventable death as inevitable. Every overdose death is a policy failure.

08/25/2026

This month’s community night was a very special night of artful remembrance in recognition of International Overdose Awareness Day (IOAD), which takes place this Monday, August 31st.

We started the night off with snacks, pizza, and tiny book-making. Big shout-out to Liz for leading us in this activity. After that, folx packed harm redux supplies and created pieces to remember, celebrate, and honor our friends, family, and community members who are no longer here because of fatal overdose and the so-called war on drugs.

We talked about what was on our minds and in our hearts and connected with other people in this shared space. It was uplifting and heart-wrenching at the same time as those we love weren't there with us.

A big thank you to those who brought snacks and shared art supplies.

Thursday, we will have a small vigil at our SSP using the art we made for IOAD to honor the people we've lost. Come snag supplies as usual, or drop off your used syringes, and we will dispose of them for you. First UCC Church Phx 7-9

If you are looking for a way to be in community for International Overdose Awareness on August 31st, and you are in Maricopa County, our friends at Sonoran Prevention Works are hosting an IOAD event at 5:30-9:30 at 8066 S. Avenida Del Yaqui, Guadalupe.

07/28/2026

Today is World Hepatitis Day!

Sharing is caring except when it comes to injection equipment.

According to the CDC, the hepatitis C virus can survive in dried blood on surfaces and injection equipment for up to 6 weeks. That's why it's important to never share syringes, cookers, cottons, tourniquets (ties), water, or other injection equipment. Using sterile syringes and unused injection supplies every time is one of the best ways to prevent hepatitis C transmission.

This is why syringe service programs play such a vital role in hepatitis C prevention and elimination!

This World Hepatitis Day, let's break down the barriers that stand between us and a hepatitis-free future. Together, we can:

Ensure everyone has the knowledge they need to make informed decisions about hepatitis prevention, testing, treatment, and vaccination.

Advocate for the resources and services communities need to prevent, test for, and treat viral hepatitis.

End stigma by treating everyone with dignity, respect, and compassion.

Recognize that eliminating viral hepatitis is not only possible it's achievable when we work together.

Share your food, share knowledge, share your love, but not your works.