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The threats to health that occur during active addiction have been widely communicated in the popular media and in the scientific literature, but the health profile of  people in long-term recovery from substance use disorders remains something of a mystery.  While one might assume that physical and emotional health rapidly improves following recovery initiation and stabilization, a health survey of Philadelphia and surrounding counties just published in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs reveals a more complex and ominous picture. 

The addiction recovery experience has been sliced and diced in all manner of categories: secular, spiritual, and religious; natural recovery, peer-assisted, and treatment-assisted; and abstinence-based, moderation-based, and medication-assisted, to name just a few. Recovery achieved through any of these frameworks is often referred to as a pathway of recovery. The growing consensus that there are multiple pathways of long-term addiction recovery marks an important public and professional milestone within the alcohol and drug problems arena.

Historically, family members were more likely to be viewed by addiction professionals as causative agents of addiction or hostile interlopers in the treatment process than people in need of recovery support services in their own right. Overcoming such attitudes has taken on added urgency due to the rising prevalence, morbidity, and mortality of opioid addiction in the United States and its rippling effects upon families and communities.

With the federal passage of the FIRST STEP Act, we finally see action on criminal justice reform! The FIRST STEP Act recently passed and was signed by the President. This was historical. For years, Congress had attempted to pass criminal justice reform legislation, such as the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act (SRCA) introduced in 2015 by Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).

Original Blog Date: September 12, 2014

I have spent more than four decades providing, studying, promoting, and defending addiction treatment, but remain acutely aware of its limitations. As currently conceived and delivered, most addiction treatment programs facilitate detoxification, recovery initiation, and early recovery stabilization more effectively and more safely than ever achieved in history, but most fall woefully short in supporting the transition to recovery maintenance and the later stages of recovery, particularly for those who need it the most–those with the most severe and complex problems and the least recovery support within their natural environment.

Emilee, now 31 years old, began raiding her parents liquor cabinet at the age of 14. By the time she hit high school, Emilee was smoking marijuana and telling herself that she would never be one of “those people”. It wasn’t long before Emilee was introduced to ecstasy, cocaine, pills, crack, and eventually heroin. Soon she realized she was in the grips of addiction. Losing her brother in 2008 pushed Emilee to new heights and the disease of addiction quickly progressed. She found herself using everyday just to ward off the sickness and to “stay well”.

Recent blogs on this site have featured Bill White’s Blasts from the Past. Also profiles from our Recovering Moms who are in the know and in the now. I contribute from my lived experience of the past and relate it to the now. I noted that an event would be held in the future—January 24— in Los Angeles, featuring a Recovery Ambassador training followed by a dinner and gala fundraiser. Faces & Voices of Recovery is working on a web site page for and about recovery ambassadors after the L.A. training.  We can spotlight all who have taken the training who are now leading recovery advocacy efforts as recovery ambassadors or as recovery carriers. Recovery carriers? Read on for more…

Original Blog Date: September 4, 2015

There is much that the recovery advocacy movement can learn from the LGBT rights movement of recent decades. The latter movement is one of the most successful social movements in history as judged by the speed at which it has elicited broad changes in cultural attitudes and policies of import to the LGBT community.

Original Blog Date: January 25, 2014

Those of you who have been reading my weekly blogs these past six months will recognize two simple and enduring themes: Recovery is contagious and recovery is spread by recovery carriers.  Those notions first came to me on April 14, 2010 when I stood to speak at Northeast Treatment Centers’ (NET) dinner honoring NET’s 40th anniversary and the achievements of NET members.   Here are some of the words that came to me as I stood before a room packed with people filled with hopes of what their newly found recoveries would bring.