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Substance Abuse Practitioners Ask 'What is Recovery?' |
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From EurekAlert! - Breaking News: Abstinence from alcohol and drugs is just the starting point in defining "recovery" for people with substance abuse disorders, according to a paper in the October issue of the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment (JSAT). "Recovery may be the best word to summarize all the positive benefits to physical, mental, and social health that can happen when alcohol- and other drug-dependent individuals get the help they need," the expert panel writes. The panel suggests a classification to define the duration of sobriety: "early" sobriety between one month and one year; "sustained" sobriety, between one and five years; and "stable" sobriety, five years or longer. Personal health is included as a component of recovery that may be of special importance to substance abusers and their families, as well as to society. Citizenship refers to "giving back" to community and society. They liken being "in recovery" to being a "cancer survivor"---a term reflecting research evidence that the risk of relapse is significantly reduced for patients who are cancer-free after five years. The articles appear in the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, October 2007, published by Elsevier.
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