“You’re all going to hate the word ‘recovery’” by DJMac

Disagree-2One of the problems with an aspirational and non-prescriptive definition of recovery is that it is hard to measure. The definitions most commonly featured in the literature share some elements including wellbeing or health, abstinence and citizenship.

Clearly if you can’t define it precisely, then it’s hard to commission services to deliver on it. In this case proxy outcomes are used. There’s a lot of debate amongst professionals on recovery definitions and measurements, but what about service users? What do they make of ‘recovery’?

In a teasingly titled paper (‘‘You’re all going to hate the word ‘recovery’ by the end of this’’: Service users’ views of measuring addiction recovery) Joanne Neale and colleagues scope the views of clients and patients in a variety of settings and run past them professional perceptions on recovery measures. How different are the perspectives?

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Overcoming Drug Addiction: Darren’s Recovery Story

Here’s one of a number of short films abut recovery that is worth checking out.

‘The Alcohol & Drug Service (ADS) has been transforming lives for more than 25 years. Here is one true story about Darren, a young man from Grimsby, who has battled back from addictions to drugs to reclaim his life and rebuild relationships with family.

Darren was supported in his recovery by The Junction, a service which The Alcohol & Drug Service delivers in partnership with Rotherham Doncaster & South Humber NHS Foundation Trust.’

‘The power of language in treatment and recovery: Do we create barriers?’ by Wirral Voice of Recovery

IMG_3474Thought I’d put up some old WITR blogs this weekend, some of my favourites. I’ve included a few of the comments on this first one, a blog from Oliver in early 2010 that challenges our treatment system:

‘I have recently read some interesting research papers on challenging stigma, mainly around drugs and mental health, with particular emphasis on methadone treatment and recovery.

The first thing that came to mind is that there is no other condition, illness, disease or disorder – or whatever one chooses to call it – that carries the same amount of stigma as when someone presents with a drug or related problem. Or that has the same relationship with the crime reduction arena (police and probation services).

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