In a deeply personal talk, Sarah Drage shares why she believes the stigma attached to alcoholism killed her Dad. Challenging society’s current stereotype against alcoholism by drawing from her family’s lived experience, Sarah’s story is powerful, hard-hitting and emotive, and certainly gives her audience something to think about. Her aim? To break down the stigma attached to alcoholism and empower alcoholics to recover openly and freely, rather than shaming them into silence and anonymity.

Disclaimer - Please note that the speaker is aware of the current language changes that are being made to break down the stigma attached to alcohol use disorder. For the sake of majority understanding and to make her point as clear as possible, the speaker has chosen to use colloquial language, and will use the terms alcoholism and alcoholic when referring to alcohol use disorder. Sarah Drage is the founder and CEO of the charitable organisation WarriorKind. She is a devoted daughter on a mission to quash the stigmas attached to mental illnesses. After losing her Dad in 2017 to alcoholism, Sarah leveraged her own lived experiences of loss, anxiety, OCD & PTSD, and channelled her trauma into founding the mental health support organisation WarriorKind, where encouraging healthy conversations around mental wellbeing is core in their mission to breaking down stigmas and supporting their community.

Sarah has found the strength, resilience, and passion within to triumph over adversity and raise awareness around the dangers of societal stigmas attached to mental illness; ensuring that her beloved Dad is not just another statistic, and that his death can become a catalyst for positive change.

www.warriorkind.co.uk This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx