Recovery Resource Library
Whether, when, and to whom?: An investigation of comfort with disclosing alcohol and other drug histories in a nationally representative sample of recovering persons
Earnshaw, Bergman, & Kelly, 2019 (Comfort Disclosing)
Digital Recovery Management: Characterizing Recovery-Specific Social Network Site Participation and Perceived Benefit
Bergman, Kelly, Hoeppner, Vilsaint, & Kelly, 2017 (Digital Recovery)
Attitudes Toward Opioid Use Disorder Medications: Results From a U.S. National Study of Individuals Who Resolved a Substance Use Problem
Bergman, Ashford, & Kelly, 2019 (Opioid Medication Attitudes)
The Paradox of Power in 12-Step Recovery
At the very heart of addiction lies the search for power, control, comfort, relief, and pleasure. At first, the drug is a secret superpower that heals, emboldens, and frees us, but as it feeds on us, it becomes stronger and we become progressively weaker. In the end, we worship the drug at the exclusion of…
Recovery Advocacy for a Country in Crisis
The remaining days of 2020 will be difficult and contentious: a raging pandemic, economic aftershocks, social justice protests, and yet unseen global crises—all hyper-illuminated by the inflammatory rhetoric of political campaigns. What is the call to service for recovery advocates in such turbulent times? Yes, we should keep our eyes on the prize: easing the…
From Collegiate Recovery Studies
A lot is happening in the world of addiction recovery. The growth and international dispersion of secular, spiritual, and religious recovery mutual aid organizations. The exponential growth of online recovery support resources. The emergence of resistance, resilience, and recovery as alternative organizing concepts for policy, planning, and funding bodies. Increased representation of people in recovery within addiction-focused policy and planning venues….
Recovery: The First 90 Days
There is something special about the number 90 in the worlds of addiction treatment and recovery. Recovery mutual aid groups extol the value of 90 meetings in 90 days as a foundation for long-term recovery. The National Institute on Drug Abuse Principles of Drug Addiction Treatment defines 90 days across levels of care as the threshold of…
The Power of Connection and Contagion: A Social Recovery Model in New Zealand
Ki te mea ka taka te kākano ki te wāhi e tika ana ka tinaku, ā, ka pihi ake he tipu hou (If a seed falls in the right place it will germinate and a new seedling will sprout) As William White has argued, recovery is contagious and passes in social networks from one visible…
Faith Matters
The Problem of Substance Abuse Substance abuse is America’s number one health problem—a problem that touches the life of every American child, family, congregation and community. Contrary to popular perception, America’s substance abuse problem results not only from illegal drugs like crack cocaine, but also from the “recreational” use of so-called “soft” drugs, like marijuana,…
Recovery-Friendly Spaces in Local Communities
No culture is neutral about psychoactive drugs. Such substances are placed into four overlapping categories: celebrated (ritualized, promoted, and commercialized), instrumental (regulated as to who, when, where, and how use can occur), tolerated (available but discouraged and socially stigmatized), or prohibited (stigmatized and severely punished). Such designations are subject to rapid change over time. Think,…
Intimacy in Addiction and Recovery
The addiction process so empties some of us that we cease being a person. Having lost any semblance of boundaries, hugging us is like trying to hug smoke. Only a masked ghost of our former selves, we exist only as a drug-consumption machine dragging along whatever whisper of our former self that remains. We devolve…
The Illuminating Recovery of Dr. Oliver Sacks
One of my favorite authors is Dr. Oliver Sacks, the famed clinical neurologist and author of such works as The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Awakenings, and Seeing Voices. Two of Sacks books (Hallucinations and On the Move) and a Sacks biography (And How Are You, Dr. Sacks by Lawrence Weschler) recount Sacks early drug experimentation, his eventual…