Recovery Advocacy Movement
The new Recovery Advocacy Movement rose in reaction to the restigmatization,
demedicalization and criminalization/penalization of AOD problems in the 80s and 90s.
This movement has been organized by a coalition of faces and voices of recovery: included, but
not limited to, the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, the Johnson Institute,
the Legal Action Center, and (until recently) the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment
Recovery Community Support Program.
The goal of this movement includes reaffirming the reality of long term addiction recovery;
celebrating the legitimacy of multiple pathways of recovery; enhancing the variety, availability
and quality of local/regional treatment and recovery support services; and transforming existing
treatment businesses into “recovery oriented systems of care” (White, 2000; White & Taylor, in
press).
The new Recovery Advocacy Movement rose in reaction to the restigmatization,
demedicalization and criminalization/penalization of AOD problems in the 80s and 90s.
This movement has been organized by a coalition of faces and voices of recovery: included, but
not limited to, the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, the Johnson Institute,
the Legal Action Center, and (until recently) the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment
Recovery Community Support Program.
The goal of this movement includes reaffirming the reality of long term addiction recovery;
celebrating the legitimacy of multiple pathways of recovery; enhancing the variety, availability
and quality of local/regional treatment and recovery support services; and transforming existing
treatment businesses into “recovery oriented systems of care” (White, 2000; White & Taylor, in
press).
Recovery Management (RM) is an emerging concept that will direct
the treatment of substance abuse for the 21st century. It calls to
reconnect addiction treatment to a larger and more enduring
process of addiction recovery. Recovery Management is the result
of three pertinent ideas:
a. Alcoholism and addiction are life long, progressive and
chronic terminal diseases.
b. Scientific evidence supports the movement away from the
Acute Care (AC) model of treatment for substance abuse to a model
of integrated holistic recovery management.
c. The suffering addict needs a full continuum of care and the
good orderly direction provided by a fully integrated recovery
community.
the treatment of substance abuse for the 21st century. It calls to
reconnect addiction treatment to a larger and more enduring
process of addiction recovery. Recovery Management is the result
of three pertinent ideas:
a. Alcoholism and addiction are life long, progressive and
chronic terminal diseases.
b. Scientific evidence supports the movement away from the
Acute Care (AC) model of treatment for substance abuse to a model
of integrated holistic recovery management.
c. The suffering addict needs a full continuum of care and the
good orderly direction provided by a fully integrated recovery
community.
This website is a doorway to change in the professional substance abuse treatment
community. We are in a revolution. It is unfolding in the US and around the world.
Recovery: The Next Stage
Since the inception of this website the purpose has been to enhance the understanding of the
new recovery in America. It is about the opportunity for recovery advocates, policy leaders,
treatment professionals, and researchers to form a partnership that will reshape the
understanding of addiction treatment and holistic recovery.
This website is our effort to help facilitate long-term recovery and to support recovery
community programs and recovery month initiatives. We support the shift of addiction
treatment from serial episodes of acute intervention to models of sustained “recovery
management."
community. We are in a revolution. It is unfolding in the US and around the world.
Recovery: The Next Stage
Since the inception of this website the purpose has been to enhance the understanding of the
new recovery in America. It is about the opportunity for recovery advocates, policy leaders,
treatment professionals, and researchers to form a partnership that will reshape the
understanding of addiction treatment and holistic recovery.
This website is our effort to help facilitate long-term recovery and to support recovery
community programs and recovery month initiatives. We support the shift of addiction
treatment from serial episodes of acute intervention to models of sustained “recovery
management."
The new integrated recovery management focuses on an integration of clinical treatment with
the recovery movement that exists in every community worldwide.
This web page focuses on the suffering addict's needs and perspectives as the most
important throughout the entire recovery process. This web page emphasizes how each
person has both the responsibility for and a philosophy of choice in his/her recovery. Thus,
the counselor and clinical treatment system staff become supporting partners along with a
rainbow of community-based, non-professional mutual aid recovery fellowships, all working to
help the addict.
Herein is a wealth of knowledge based on experience that documents the success of peer
support (e.g., AA or other fellowships) as the gold standard of mutual aid or recovery
fellowships.
The website also offers more studies that document increased recovery progress when
treatment is combined with such peer support fellowships in the community. This page does
not advocate for treatment alone or recovery support alone as the preferred recovery path.
the recovery movement that exists in every community worldwide.
This web page focuses on the suffering addict's needs and perspectives as the most
important throughout the entire recovery process. This web page emphasizes how each
person has both the responsibility for and a philosophy of choice in his/her recovery. Thus,
the counselor and clinical treatment system staff become supporting partners along with a
rainbow of community-based, non-professional mutual aid recovery fellowships, all working to
help the addict.
Herein is a wealth of knowledge based on experience that documents the success of peer
support (e.g., AA or other fellowships) as the gold standard of mutual aid or recovery
fellowships.
The website also offers more studies that document increased recovery progress when
treatment is combined with such peer support fellowships in the community. This page does
not advocate for treatment alone or recovery support alone as the preferred recovery path.
Recovery Management
The “old ones, the first one hundred,” they who wrote the “book”, and all those they helped to
get into recovery and become sober were inspired to create a recovery fellowship. They
envisioned professionally directed treatment as a doorway into the communities of recovery.
They were not a glum lot; they knew the road to recovery was a “broad highway" and that there
were and are many paths to recovery.
Now, after years of “professionalization”, we have an ever-growing treatment industry that
views recovery as an after thought and penalizes recovering people for speaking their reality.
The professionals see themselves as all-knowing and they are not interested in the
experience, strength and hope of the "old ones"; they discredit these ideas and show a lack of
interest in working with “unscientific methods”. Their lack of interest in these unscientific
methods, that have been proven to produce long-lasting, quality sobriety is astonishing; some
will pursue this professionalization into the gates of insanity or death.
At last there is recognition that a much larger power is needed; a continuum of care provided
by the whole community that provides the necessary good orderly direction that is needed by
those seeking quality sobriety or "wellbriety". Now is the time for all people in recovery to
come to the aid of this new understanding and work and advocate for this change in the
treatment industry toward “Recovery Management”.
Won't you please join us to bring about this new understanding of addiction and recovery?
Please click on the FFR link for more info on how you can help in this movement toward
recovery management.
The “old ones, the first one hundred,” they who wrote the “book”, and all those they helped to
get into recovery and become sober were inspired to create a recovery fellowship. They
envisioned professionally directed treatment as a doorway into the communities of recovery.
They were not a glum lot; they knew the road to recovery was a “broad highway" and that there
were and are many paths to recovery.
Now, after years of “professionalization”, we have an ever-growing treatment industry that
views recovery as an after thought and penalizes recovering people for speaking their reality.
The professionals see themselves as all-knowing and they are not interested in the
experience, strength and hope of the "old ones"; they discredit these ideas and show a lack of
interest in working with “unscientific methods”. Their lack of interest in these unscientific
methods, that have been proven to produce long-lasting, quality sobriety is astonishing; some
will pursue this professionalization into the gates of insanity or death.
At last there is recognition that a much larger power is needed; a continuum of care provided
by the whole community that provides the necessary good orderly direction that is needed by
those seeking quality sobriety or "wellbriety". Now is the time for all people in recovery to
come to the aid of this new understanding and work and advocate for this change in the
treatment industry toward “Recovery Management”.
Won't you please join us to bring about this new understanding of addiction and recovery?
Please click on the FFR link for more info on how you can help in this movement toward
recovery management.
Recovery coaching is a partnership approach to actively working with people to achieve
recovery from severe behavioral health disorders.
It is analogous to prolonged effective management of asthma, diabetes, and hypertension.
Its emphasis is on assertive linkage to communities of recovery, post-treatment monitoring and
professional/peer support, stage-approriate recovery education (recovery coaching) and, when
needed, early re-intervention.
If you have suicidal thoughts, pick up
the phone and call:1-800-273-8255
from anywhere in the U.S; or call 911
for help.
the phone and call:1-800-273-8255
from anywhere in the U.S; or call 911
for help.