Addiction and Treatment Careers

~ Jason Schwartz

new-life-old-life-300x300Bill White on addiction and treatment careers:

The odds of stable recovery increase with the accumulation of years of substance dependence. Sustainable recovery is often preceded by years of cycling in and out of sobriety experiments until multiple interventions generate enough cumulative recovery capital to tip the scales to stable recovery maintenance. The majority of persons who recover from severe and persistent substance dependence do so after multiple treatment episodes occurring over a span of years. However, there is a sizable population of people with three or more treatment admissions who do not improve following additional admissions to treatment as currently designed and delivered. In a long-term follow-up of those entering treatment in Chicago, the median period from first use to first year of achieved abstinence was 27 years, and the median time from first treatment admission to first year of abstinence spanned three to four treatment episodes over the average course of nine years.

Published by Jason Schwartz

I have been an addiction professional and social worker since 1994. I started blogging in 2005 as the Clinical Director at Dawn Farm. I no longer work at Dawn Farm and am now the Director of Behavioral Medicine at a community hospital, and a lecturer at Eastern Michigan University’s School of Social Work. Views expressed here are my own. Keep in mind that the field, the contexts in which the field operates, and my views have changed over time.

5 thoughts on “Addiction and Treatment Careers”

  1. Brings up interesting questions about how we might shorten careers and particularly for those who don’t respond to multiple treatment episodes. They may need a different approach and I wonder what form it would take.

    1. Well, Bill uses this as an argument for ending serial treatment episodes and replacing them with models that have low thresholds for service entry and provide continuous support until stable recovery is achieved.

      2. He does point to maintenance clinics as doing a better job of long term engagement. But, he’s also been critical of the lack of recovery focus in them. As usual, I think physician programs are the model.

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