Yesterday's post discussed a response to a guide intended to facilitate the protection of people with lived experience when sharing their personal stories. Activism for the rights of people who use drugs and models of recovery that include ongoing AOD use increasingly destabilizes our understandings of the nature of addiction and its solutions, often seeking … Continue reading Is it harmful to frame addiction as a disease?
Tag: Recovery
Guidelines for publicly sharing addiction recovery stories: protecting, paternalism, or gatekeeping?
Several months ago, the National Council for Mental Wellbeing (NCMW) posted their Protecting Individuals with Lived Experience in Public Disclosure Guide. They describe it as a tool for self-evaluation allowing individuals and organizations to assess the risks to people publicly sharing addiction and recovery stories. I've seen little attention to this topic, but I welcome … Continue reading Guidelines for publicly sharing addiction recovery stories: protecting, paternalism, or gatekeeping?
Constructive Feedback and thoughts on the SAMHSA Unified Client-Level Performance Reporting Tool (SUPRT)
As posted in the Federal Register in early September, The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is the agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that leads public health efforts to advance the behavioral health of the nation. SAMHSA is seeking approval for the new SAMHSA Unified Client-level Performance Reporting … Continue reading Constructive Feedback and thoughts on the SAMHSA Unified Client-Level Performance Reporting Tool (SUPRT)
Nora Volkow on More Realistic And Pragmatic Addiction Treatment
(This post was originally published on 2/6/2022) Source: NIDA There is and can be no ultimate solution for us to discover, but instead a permanent need for balancing contradictory claims, for careful trade-offs between conflicting values, toleration of difference, consideration of the specific factors at play when a choice is needed, not reliance on an … Continue reading Nora Volkow on More Realistic And Pragmatic Addiction Treatment
Addiction, Stigma, and Liberation
(Originally posted August 14, 2022) I recently stumbled on this educational page about stigma from the National Harm Reduction Coalition. It's well done and illuminates the assumptions and goals for their stigma reduction efforts. They frame responding to drug use as a choice between liberation and stigma, with harm reduction as the path to liberation. … Continue reading Addiction, Stigma, and Liberation
Multiple pathways as a disruptor: from what to what?
"Multiple pathways to recovery" has been popularized by the new recovery advocacy movement (NRAM) and Recovery Oriented Systems of Care (ROSC), but the concept has been around since at least 1944. The September 1944 issue of Alcoholics Anonymous' Grapevine published an article by Philip Wylie, describing his solo recovery supported by psychologists and reading. Bill … Continue reading Multiple pathways as a disruptor: from what to what?
Unanswered Questions on the Evolving Role of Lived Experience
Lived experience has long been a significant component of addiction treatment and recovery. In recent years, its prominence has only grown as mainstream medicine seeks to infuse lived experience into the standard of care for not only substance use disorder (SUD) treatment, but across the larger behavioral health field. However, as the field evolves, determining … Continue reading Unanswered Questions on the Evolving Role of Lived Experience
The war against ‘pathology porn’: How can we make recovery research strengths-based and generative
by David Best, Sharynne Hamilton, Noreen Demeria, Tom Karl The problem Assessments for drug and alcohol treatment are generally miserable affairs. For both parties. As a result of worries about governance, risk, safety, funding etc, the person seeking help is often confronted by a ‘professional’ armed with a questionnaire that is made up of standardised … Continue reading The war against ‘pathology porn’: How can we make recovery research strengths-based and generative
Am I in recovery?
A recent paper on collegiate recovery experiences highlights an important dynamic in recovery advocacy, recovery science, and recovery policy. I've commented a lot on the conceptual boundaries of recovery in the blog -- the relationship between addiction (or SUD or other compulsive behaviors) and recovery; whether recovery is a process, a direction, or an outcome; … Continue reading Am I in recovery?
Partnering in pursuit of truth and recovery
Bill Stauffer recently shared Bill White's keynote from this week's Consortium on Addiction Recovery Science. It's a great speech and there's a lot to absorb. I'm sure more will be said about it on this blog. White frames recovery research as emerging from a gaping hole in professional/clinical and scientific/research knowledge related to recovery. To … Continue reading Partnering in pursuit of truth and recovery
Recovery Review 