Lifewise
Lifewise is a team of people concerned about the harm alcohol causes both in Ireland and worldwide. The World Health Organisation states alcohol misuse is the 3rd leading cause of disease in health care systems. They state all patients should be screened once a year for alcohol misuse. This does not happen as treatment systems are not good enough. Also stigma means many people find it very difficult to obtain the right treatment for them. Many organisations do not have enough funding. So treatment tends to be a “one size fits all” sheep dip approach rather than listening and finding out what each person really needs.
Campaigning is too slow
So we helped co-found two registered charities, Dual Diagnosis Ireland and Mental Health Reform. Both of these charities continue to promote better services. We soon learnt that change happens very slowly and people continue to suffer. We have all personally experienced this suffering either ourselves- like Valerie, or have lost family members to alcohol abuse. According to one leading counsellor if mental health is the Cinderella of physical health care, alcohol abuse is the ugly sister. Improving treatments and reducing society’s emphasis on drinking is not a high priority.
We realised if we are to reduce alcohol harm quickly, we would need to develop a new type of service. So after much research we developed Lifewise which is very easy to start using. Lifewise addresses all aspects of alcohol misuse including mental health. All help takes place on-line. However where people need a face to face service within Ireland we can recommend alternative services as we work in partnership with other organisations.
We are members of the Alcohol Health Alliance.
We are a not for profit organisation
We are a social enterprise organisation so any profits are re-invested to make our service better. We are also committed to research and development so we continually improve our service to you.
Lifewise is mainly self funded by us. We do not receive any funding from the alcohol industry. We welcome philanthropic funding and donations. None of us draw any salary.