Substance use recovery: Global health perspectives and experiences

Abstract

Addictive behavior treatment networks comprise harm-reduction services and recovery programs. Recovery is an approach toward interventions for addictive behavior that focuses on the individual’s empowerment, abilities, and life skills. Rehabilitation-oriented programs have evolved from traditional therapeutic communities to comprehensive services that are integrated into social and health networks and delivered by multidisciplinary professionals. This paper aims to analyze the development of recovery programs, drawing from quantitative and qualitative data from an action research approach. It also presents theoretical models and best practices for recovery. In summary, recovery-oriented programs must be integrated with harm-reduction networks, social and employment services, and health systems. Furthermore, as recovery is based on empowerment and peer social support, there is an urgent need to develop structured programs to address these issues. Moreover, there is a need to design and implement specific interventions for a broad range of populations and develop evaluation systems to assess the effectiveness and relevance of recovery-oriented programs.

Keywords

Addictive behaviors / Recovery / Treatment network

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank T.C. San Patrignano, Triple R project partners, as well as Mirjana Vojinović, Darko Condic, and Sinisa Panic for their collaboration during the project.

Funding

Funding for this study was provided by “HOME/2014/ JDRU/AG/DRUG/7092 Triple R: Rehabilitation for Recovery and Reinsertion project.” Triple R Project was funded with the support of the European Commission. This publication reflects only the views of the author, and the European Commission is not liable of the information contained therein. European Commission had no role in the study design, collection, analysis, or interpretation of the data, writing the manuscript, or the decision to submit the paper for publication.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Author contributions

Conceptualization: Antonio Jesús Molina Fernández

Writing - original draft: All authors

Writing - review & editing: All authors

Ethics approval and consent to participate

This study received approval from the UCM Deontological Research Commission (ethical approved project identification code is UCM PR2019_20_043).

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Availability of data

Not applicable.

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