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The Role of Recovery Residences in Promoting Long‐Term Addiction Recovery
Author(s) -
The Society for Community Research
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
american journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.113
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1573-2770
pISSN - 0091-0562
DOI - 10.1007/s10464-013-9602-6
Subject(s) - community psychology , association (psychology) , action (physics) , health psychology , call to action , citation , psychology , statement (logic) , sociology , social psychology , political science , law , medicine , advertising , public health , psychotherapist , physics , nursing , quantum mechanics , business
Addiction and the larger arena of alcohol and other drug (AOD) abuse and related problems exact an enormous toll on individuals, families, organizations, local neighborhoods, and whole communities in the United States. Although a great number of advances have been made in AOD treatment, far too few individuals who could benefit from treatment receive it, and many who do receive treatment will resume AOD use following their discharge from it. New recovery support institutions are emerging beyond the arenas of traditional addiction treatment to support individuals hoping to initiate and to sustain long term recovery from addiction. One promising mechanism is the recovery residence. Recovery residences (e.g., sober living houses, recovery homes, and Oxford Houses) are sober, safe, and healthy living environments that promote recovery from AOD use and associated problems. At a minimum, recovery residences offer peer-to-peer recovery support with some providing professionally delivered clinical services all aimed at promoting abstinence-based, long-term recovery. Recovery residences are sober living environments, meaning that residents are expected to abstain from alcohol and illegal drug use. Each credentialed recovery residence publishes policies on relapse sanctions and readmission criteria and other rules governing group living. Recovery residences may require abstinence from particular types of medications according to individual policy. Although the exact number is currently unknown, many thousands exist in the United States. A small but growing body of research supports the effectiveness of recovery residences in sustaining abstinence and promoting gains in a variety of other domains, and the National Association of Recovery Residences has developed guidelines to define levels of care and standards to ensure the quality of care received. Yet, despite these advances, recovery residences face innumerable challenges. Critical questions regarding the operations and effects of recovery residence participation remain unanswered, and research scientists wishing to study recovery residences face considerable funding challenges given the prevailing funding emphasis on the neuroscience of addiction. Efforts to establish or relocate recovery residences face challenges with start-up funding and often face considerable neighborhood and political opposition. Also of importance, many health and human professionals are unaware of recovery residences and their benefits on longterm recovery outcomes. The Society of Community Research and Action (SCRA) has developed, with the executive, advocacy and research committees of the National Association of Recovery Residences (NARR), a policy statement on the value of recovery residences in the United States. This policy statement (1) describes the emergence and rapid growth of recovery residences as a new addiction recovery support institution, (2) highlights research to date on the positive effects of participation in a recovery residence on long-term addiction recovery and related outcomes, (3) This policy statement is an official statement of the Society for Community Research and Action, Division 27 of the American Psychological Association, and does not represent the position of the American Psychological Association or any of its other Divisions or subunits.