Never in U.S. history have there existed more choices of support for the resolution of alcohol and other drug (AOD) problems. Today, recovery support groups span secular, spiritual, and religious orientations, with meetings also organized by gender, age, sexual orientation, language preference, profession, and co-occurring conditions, to name just a few. Recent scientific studies and…

Readers who have followed this blog series are aware of my sustained interest in the ecology of recovery, particularly the role of recovery space/landscapes within local communities, and the stages of long-term personal and family recovery. A just-published article by Lena Theodoropoulou in the International Journal of Drug Policy offers some intriguing insights into these topics. Below are notes…

Since the late 1990s, I have advocated a radical redesign of addiction treatment—one that extends the prevailing acute care model of addiction treatment to one of sustained recovery management (RM) nested within larger recovery oriented systems of care (ROSC). (See HERE for a basic primer on RM & ROSC.). RM moves beyond providing brief episodes of biopsychosocial…

In 2005, my colleagues Christy Scott, Michael Dennis, Michael Boyle, and I co-authored an article entitled It’s Time to Stop Kicking People out of Addiction Treatment. At that time, 18% (or 288,000) of people admitted to specialized addiction treatment in the U.S. were “administratively discharged” (“kicked out”) prior to treatment completion. Such expulsions most often resulted…

Introduction (Bill White)  The international recovery advocacy (and peer recovery support) movement is marked by the proliferation of grassroots recovery community organizations that are distinct from traditional addiction treatment organizations and recovery mutual aid societies. As these new organizations emerge across geographical and cultural contexts, one of the critical needs is the creation of a…

Since its inception in the late 1990s, a central goal of the new recovery advocacy movement has been assuring the representation of recovering individuals and families in the decision-making venues that affect their lives. As this movement matured, the complexities of achieving such representation became increasingly apparent. Dynamics within and beyond communities of recovery can…

Harvard-trained historian Ernest Kurtz loved stories. The power of story and the role of storytelling in personal identity and addiction recovery filled his writings on Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.), and they were central themes in the books he co-authored with Katherine Ketcham: The Spirituality of Imperfection and Experiencing Spirituality. I apprenticed under Ernie’s guidance for more than two decades in…

SAMHSA’s BRSS TACS releases directory of peer recovery coaching training and certification programs The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) Bringing Recovery Supports to Scale Technical Assistance Center Strategy (BRSS TACS) recently released their State-by-State Directory of Peer Recovery Coaching Training and Certification Programs. The directory provides detailed information about certification processes for peer…

Social anxiety/phobia, often mischaracterized as extreme shyness, constitutes a potential pathway into addiction and a major obstacle to addiction treatment and recovery. Robert and Kaisha could not be more different at a quick glance, but they shared the curse of what others perceived as extreme shyness. Robert and Kaisha dreaded any social situation filled with…

I believe we live in the greatest era of snake oil salesmen in the history of mankind. —Michael Crichton, Next, 2006 The addictions treatment field has grossly oversold the effectiveness of a single episode of brief clinical intervention. For more than two decades, calls have increased for a radical redesign of addiction treatment and related recovery support…

Until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter. –African Proverb From Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton: “Why do you write like you’re running out of time?” Me: “Because I am.” In the late 1990s, I experienced an epiphany of sorts—a sudden awareness that the addiction field had acquired a massive body of scientific…

Eddie, Greene, White, & Kelly, 2019 (Medical Burden)