Allegheny County Councilwoman Bethany Hallam celebrates her sobriety date like it’s her birthday.

“Because it is,” she said. “It was my opportunity to have the life that I knew I was meant to live.”

Saturday morning, she spoke to a sea of purple — the color of addiction awareness — at the 10th anniversary of the Pittsburgh Recovery Walk in a parking lot in the Strip District.

Children played with balloon animals, a Goldendoodle wore a Recovery Walk T-shirt, and walkers sported “Sober is Sexy” shirts, shirts with photos of their loved ones lost to addiction, shirts with words of hope. Since 1989, September has been designated as National Alcohol & Drug Addiction Recovery Awareness Month and, since 2008, National Suicide Prevention Month.

Every year for the past decade, more people die f

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