Recovery from alcohol and other drug problems has typically been conceived as a personal transformation, but what happens when the substance use problem is community-wide?
Recovery from alcohol and other drug problems has typically been conceived as a personal transformation, but what happens when the substance use problem is community-wide?
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Recovery from alcohol and other drug problems has often been referred to as problem resolution and quality of life improvements that occur on a personal level. Beyond the personal level, widespread problematic use of alcohol and other drugs can deteriorate system level resources such as strong families, tight social networks, and indigenous community institutions. Over time, when hopelessness and learned helplessness become ingrained in community culture and transmitted across generations, the community itself is in need of recovery from alcohol and other drug problems. Little attention has been paid to recovery on a community level; therefore, there is a need to identify strategies used to promote community recovery. The purpose of this article was to draw on the authors’ experiences within a recovery-focused behavioral health care systems transformation to define community recovery and outline some working principles.
For 5 years the authors were involved in a recovery-focused renovation in the behavioral healthcare system in Philadelphia, PA. They navigated a complex system of personal, family, neighborhood, and community health factors. Although the primary focus was on enhancing recovery outcomes for individuals and families affected by behavioral health disorders, they routinely reexamined the idea of community recovery as both a goal and method. In the process, they identified several strategies that promoted recovery from alcohol and other drugs at multiple levels.
Using a case study, the authors identified the methods most linked to the goal of community recovery in the forms of inspiration of hope, creating a network of recovering communities, mobilizing internal and external resources, creating a vision, and increasing trust.
Larger social systems within communities and neighborhoods can be devastated also by the prolonged effects of alcohol and other drugs and ultimately undermine recovery efforts. This article outlines strategies on how social systems can be targeted to support recovery at the community level, which in turn, can foster recovery on the individual level. Community recovery is more than the individual recovery of community members, it involves “strengthening the connective tissue” between people with and without active alcohol and other drug problems, while rebuilding and sustaining the quality of community life. Strategies of community building and rejuvenation (Table 1), can be paired with, or stand as an alternative to clinical models of intervention (click here for a social enterprise model called Jobs, Friends, and Houses), depending on the needs of the community.
Previous models to intervene in alcohol and other drug problems have used treatment facilities in which trained professionals would screen and treat individuals and families. Future work could conceptualize the community as the patient conducting assessments, making informed diagnoses of the nature of the problems, and mobilize and catalyze recovery processes for the community as a whole.
Evans, A.C., Lamb, R., & White, W. (2013). The community as the patient: Recovery-focused community mobilization in Philadelphia, PA (USA), 2005-2012. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, 31(4), 450-465.
l
Recovery from alcohol and other drug problems has often been referred to as problem resolution and quality of life improvements that occur on a personal level. Beyond the personal level, widespread problematic use of alcohol and other drugs can deteriorate system level resources such as strong families, tight social networks, and indigenous community institutions. Over time, when hopelessness and learned helplessness become ingrained in community culture and transmitted across generations, the community itself is in need of recovery from alcohol and other drug problems. Little attention has been paid to recovery on a community level; therefore, there is a need to identify strategies used to promote community recovery. The purpose of this article was to draw on the authors’ experiences within a recovery-focused behavioral health care systems transformation to define community recovery and outline some working principles.
For 5 years the authors were involved in a recovery-focused renovation in the behavioral healthcare system in Philadelphia, PA. They navigated a complex system of personal, family, neighborhood, and community health factors. Although the primary focus was on enhancing recovery outcomes for individuals and families affected by behavioral health disorders, they routinely reexamined the idea of community recovery as both a goal and method. In the process, they identified several strategies that promoted recovery from alcohol and other drugs at multiple levels.
Using a case study, the authors identified the methods most linked to the goal of community recovery in the forms of inspiration of hope, creating a network of recovering communities, mobilizing internal and external resources, creating a vision, and increasing trust.
Larger social systems within communities and neighborhoods can be devastated also by the prolonged effects of alcohol and other drugs and ultimately undermine recovery efforts. This article outlines strategies on how social systems can be targeted to support recovery at the community level, which in turn, can foster recovery on the individual level. Community recovery is more than the individual recovery of community members, it involves “strengthening the connective tissue” between people with and without active alcohol and other drug problems, while rebuilding and sustaining the quality of community life. Strategies of community building and rejuvenation (Table 1), can be paired with, or stand as an alternative to clinical models of intervention (click here for a social enterprise model called Jobs, Friends, and Houses), depending on the needs of the community.
Previous models to intervene in alcohol and other drug problems have used treatment facilities in which trained professionals would screen and treat individuals and families. Future work could conceptualize the community as the patient conducting assessments, making informed diagnoses of the nature of the problems, and mobilize and catalyze recovery processes for the community as a whole.
Evans, A.C., Lamb, R., & White, W. (2013). The community as the patient: Recovery-focused community mobilization in Philadelphia, PA (USA), 2005-2012. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, 31(4), 450-465.
l
Recovery from alcohol and other drug problems has often been referred to as problem resolution and quality of life improvements that occur on a personal level. Beyond the personal level, widespread problematic use of alcohol and other drugs can deteriorate system level resources such as strong families, tight social networks, and indigenous community institutions. Over time, when hopelessness and learned helplessness become ingrained in community culture and transmitted across generations, the community itself is in need of recovery from alcohol and other drug problems. Little attention has been paid to recovery on a community level; therefore, there is a need to identify strategies used to promote community recovery. The purpose of this article was to draw on the authors’ experiences within a recovery-focused behavioral health care systems transformation to define community recovery and outline some working principles.
For 5 years the authors were involved in a recovery-focused renovation in the behavioral healthcare system in Philadelphia, PA. They navigated a complex system of personal, family, neighborhood, and community health factors. Although the primary focus was on enhancing recovery outcomes for individuals and families affected by behavioral health disorders, they routinely reexamined the idea of community recovery as both a goal and method. In the process, they identified several strategies that promoted recovery from alcohol and other drugs at multiple levels.
Using a case study, the authors identified the methods most linked to the goal of community recovery in the forms of inspiration of hope, creating a network of recovering communities, mobilizing internal and external resources, creating a vision, and increasing trust.
Larger social systems within communities and neighborhoods can be devastated also by the prolonged effects of alcohol and other drugs and ultimately undermine recovery efforts. This article outlines strategies on how social systems can be targeted to support recovery at the community level, which in turn, can foster recovery on the individual level. Community recovery is more than the individual recovery of community members, it involves “strengthening the connective tissue” between people with and without active alcohol and other drug problems, while rebuilding and sustaining the quality of community life. Strategies of community building and rejuvenation (Table 1), can be paired with, or stand as an alternative to clinical models of intervention (click here for a social enterprise model called Jobs, Friends, and Houses), depending on the needs of the community.
Previous models to intervene in alcohol and other drug problems have used treatment facilities in which trained professionals would screen and treat individuals and families. Future work could conceptualize the community as the patient conducting assessments, making informed diagnoses of the nature of the problems, and mobilize and catalyze recovery processes for the community as a whole.
Evans, A.C., Lamb, R., & White, W. (2013). The community as the patient: Recovery-focused community mobilization in Philadelphia, PA (USA), 2005-2012. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, 31(4), 450-465.
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