It is a common trope to describe addiction as a ‘chronic, relapsing condition’ akin to diabetes and assume that means that people do not recover. Worse, there is a pessimistic orthodoxy that has permeated in the addiction treatment field that the best we can possibly achieve is to keep people alive and out of jail.
This is a harmful and destructive myth. According to the US Substance Use and Mental Health Services Administration in 2009, 58% of people who have a lifetime substance use disorder will eventually achieve recovery – which in their definition is described as five years of continuous sobriety from their primary substance of misuse.
But what we mean by recovery is much more than just abstinence and we typically describe in two ways – ‘somewhere to live, someone to love and something to do’ or, in more of a shorthand version, ‘jobs, friends and houses’.
Recovery is not about going back to where you started from (which is usually the reason the person became addicted in the first place) but rather about a journey of personal growth and discovery, a journey of human flourishing.
And this journey is intrinsically and inherently social. Recovering people are inspired by others in recovery and their journeys typically have two golden threads – positive social connection and meaningful activities. In my own early research in this (Best et al, 2011; a study of people in recovery from alcohol and heroin problems in Glasgow) the two strongest predictors of wellbeing in recovery were spending time with other people in recovery and engagement in meaningful activity.
Crucially, the two things are linked. When people are members of positive and active social groups, they are more likely to be able to access resources in the community and we know that work, education and volunteering both support people in their recovery but also contribute to life in the community.
This is where Getting Clean comes in. Many people in recovery are blocked by what is called ‘structural stigma’ – their histories mean that they are not given chances to work where they want (or even live where they want). So many people in recovery set up their own businesses – remarkably, when we completed our first UK Life in Recovery survey (Best et al, 2015), 15% of people in long-term recovery had set up their own businesses.
This is what Chris did with Getting Clean – a social enterprise that makes ‘soap with hope’. He employs people in recovery, others volunteer with Getting Clean and they carry a message of hope and possibility with every bar of soap that they sell.
Recovery is contagious and is emblematic of human triumph over adversity – but it also has a ripple effect that means people get jobs, achieve their human potential, actively participate in their communities and carry the banner for recovery as an asset in the communities in which it flourishes.
This is how we challenge stigma and how we can have a strengths-based discussion about the hope that can prevail over the misery of addiction.
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Written by David Best and Chris Sylvester
Event Info: Last few tickets for our panel chat “How do we talk about addiction?”
Main photos by: Chapter 81
