What is recovery?

1. What is ‘recovery’?

2. What is ‘recovery’?
• This is actually a big question!
• The answer is: ‘it depends’
– It depends on what someone in
recovery thinks it means.
– It depends on how we define
‘recovery’ or ‘getting better’.
– It is easier to say what recovery
is not.

3. What is ‘recovery’ (cont.)
• Recovery is not:
– What help agencies say is recovery
– Something you can easily measure
– Something you can apply to populations of
patients/clients/service users
– A destination
– Something you achieve

4. What is ‘recovery’ (cont.)?
So, recovery can be:
– What someone with a substance use issue identifies as
‘recovery’ for them.
– Something services need to identify through consultation with
individual service users.
– A journey in which people gain improvement from their previous
unwanted state.
– Something you can be in but not achieve.

5. What is ‘recovery’ (cont)?
Some definitions of ‘recovery’ have been attempted. Recovery is:
‘voluntarily sustained control over substance use which maximises
health and wellbeing and participation in the rights, roles and
responsibilities of society’ (UK Drug Policy Commission, 2008).
‘a process through which an individual is enabled to move from
their problem drug use, towards a drug-free lifestyle as an active
and contributing member of society’ (Scottish Government, 2008).

6. What is ‘recovery’ (cont.)?
• Amore useful way of looking at it is to see how it fits into treatment
and care services.
• It may be easier to view recovery as something care services can
help facilitate through treatment, support and signposting.
• It is suggested that people in early stages of recovery need the
combination of support from treatment agencies and service user
communities or self help groups, while people in more stable
recovery are able to sustain their recovery after treatment through
continuing mutual aid support (Laudet 2007).

7. Origins of recovery
The origins of recovery give an insight into what it might be:
– It emerged from mental health service users in the US who
rebelled against being labelled as ‘ill’ and made to be dependent
on mental health services.
– The US ‘mental health survivor’ movement developed its own
ideas about what it was to be well with a mental illness.

8. Origins of recovery (cont.)
• In the field of problematic substance use, especially alcohol
dependency, recovery became adopted by self-help and mutual aid
groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous in the US.
• It has also become a movement for advocacy for people with
problematic substance use (alcohol and other drugs) in both the US
and the UK.
• In the UK it has links with SMART and 12-step approaches to
substance addiction.

9. Recovery in the UK
In the UK, principles for recovery
for both mental health and
substance misuse are variously
identified, but there are some
common themes.

10. Recovery principles
(Jacobsen & Greenley 2001)
Support for someone in recovery is likely to include:
– Social support and inclusion in society
– A whole systems approach: focus on strengths in the
person, their community and networks
– Hope – that change is achievable
– Self-empowerment and self-development

11. Recovery communities (i.e. White, 2007)
The recovery community in the UK is
adopting additional advocacy and social
justice principles. It aims to:
– Reduce stigma of addiction through
advocacy and role models.
– Counter public portrayals of people
which dehumanise them.
– Enhance quality of treatment choices
and provision.
– Promote social policies to reduce
substance use problems.

12. Recovery – what does this mean
to services?
• Services providing support for people
with substance use problems are
becoming recovery-oriented.
• Specialist substance use services are
adopting recovery principles and
being commissioned to provide
recovery- and strengths-based
services, developed with service user
consultation.
• Services are increasingly working
together with recovery groups.

13. Recovery principles and support
approaches (Best 2012)
Evidence suggests that recovery can be supported when a whole
systems approach is adopted to support the individual.
This reflects the principle of focusing on:
– The individual’s strengths and needs.
– Developing and using their social networks.
– Developing, supporting and using their community.

14. Recovery approaches – recovery
capital (Granfield & Cloud 2001)
• Recovery Capital is described as the internal and external strengths
and resources that a person has which may support them in their
recovery.
• This means that a focus on the assets a person has, instead of the
deficits, produces more hope, more support and reduces the
negative identity usually associated with dependence:
– ‘Once a drunk, always a drunk’ becomes ....
– ‘Once a drunk, now a recoverist!’

15. Recovery capital (cont.) (Best & Laudet, 2010)
Recovery capital may have layers:
– Personal capital
• The skills, experiences and strengths within a person.
– Social capital
• The connections a person has with support from others.
– Collective capital
• Aspects of community life which provides a recovery context
(i.e. availability of treatment, mutual aid groups, localised
political will to support recovery).

16. References
• Best D (2012) Addiction Recovery: a movement for social change and personal
growth. Brighton, Pavilion.
• Best D & Laudet A (2010) The Potential for Recovery Capital. London, RSA.
• Granfield R & Cloud W (2001) Social context and natural recovery. Substance Use
& Misuse, 36, 1543-1570.
• Jacobsen N & Greenley D (2001) What is recovery? A conceptual model and
explication, Psychiatric Services, 52, 4, 482–5.
• Laudet A (2007) What does recovery mean to you? Journal of Substance Abuse
Treatment, 33, 243-256.
• UK Drug Policy Commission (2008). A Vision of Recovery. London, UK Drug Policy
Commission.
• The Scottish Government (2008) The Road to Recovery. Edinburgh. The Scottish
Govt.
• White W (2007) The new recovery advocacy movement in America. Addiction, 102,
696-703.
• White W (2011) Professional service and recovery advocacy in England: an
interview with Mark Gilman. Available at: www.facesandvoicesofrecovery.org