Drug and alcohol recovery outcome and success over the long-term

http://jeremyfrankphd.com/drug-and-alcohol-recovery-outcome-and-success-over-the-long-term-alcoholism-and-heroin-addiction-and-recovery-may-not-be-so-bleak/

… in the past ten years there have been advances in the quality and quantity of longitudinal (long-term) research which supports claims that most individuals grappling with drug addiction or alcoholism eventually recover… Relapse occurred 40 percent of the time after two years of sobriety but was rarely reported after five years of abstinence…The death rate for alcoholics was 2-3 times the death rate of a non-alcoholic population. In general, they found the main factors critical for recovery were finding a substitute for alcohol use, close supervision, new relationships and involvement in some sort of spiritual programs. Since Alcoholics Anonymous comprises all these, AA involvement was the best predictor of abstinence.

It appears that if we look at lifetime recovery rates there is a good chance that most of you in the room will eventually recover. It’s interesting to compare compliance to treatment and recovery among the disease of addiction and alcoholism to other diseases and their respective compliance to treatment and recovery regimens for diseases like diabetes, hypertension and asthma. In fact, researches have suggested that with these latter diseases the recovery rates are even more bleak. That with diabetes even fewer people will take their medicine, exercise and eat healthily and avoid “people, places, and things,” like chocolate cake. For diseases like diabetes, hypertension and asthma, recovery rates and compliance is more likely to be something like 8-25%. Yet addicts and alcoholics have a slightly better compliance and recovery rate approximating between 10-30 percent. The reason for this may be what Vaillant and other researchers found in these landmark studies. When addicts and alcoholics go to Alcoholics Anonymous they meet supportive people who remind them to be healthy, “take their medicine,” go to meetings, avoid people places and things, work the steps and call their sponsor. Someone struggling with diabetes or asthma may not be so lucky. To be sure alcoholism and heroin addiction are deadly diseases but many people can recover and do recover with sustained hard work and social support. In Alcoholics Anonymous it is said that alcoholism ends in jails, institutions or death. We should now actually be more hopeful. It is more likely that alcoholism and addiction will end in recovery.