A Longitudinal Qualitative Analysis of the Lived Experience of the Recovery Process in Opioid-Dependent Patients Post-Detoxification

Recovery capital in action: How is gender understood and employed by men and women recovering from gambling disorder?

Gender is a multidimensional construct that differentiates males and females according to its meanings in different socio-cultural contexts. Recovery capital (RC) describes the internal and external resources individuals employ and/or have access to when overcoming addictions. Negative RC refers to elements that hinder recovery. The literature on gender and RC is baffling since unlike quantitative studies that have found no differences between men and women in the levels of RC, qualitative comparisons indeed underscore differences. This study employed qualitative and quantitative research methods to explore how men and women with gambling disorder (GD) understand and employ gender as a factor in their recovery. Participants with GD (N = 133, 39 women) answered an open-ended question on gender as a component in their recovery. Content analysis revealed that 41.35% of the interviewees did not consider gender as a significant factor in recovery. By contrast, 58.65% viewed gender as important to recovery, indicating four gender-related elements that either enhance and/or hinder recovery: gender stereotypes, gender roles, mixed-gender therapeutic space, and sex in exchange for money for gambling. Chi-square analyses showed no differences between men and women in the distribution of the relevance of gender to recovery. Both groups reported similar perceptions of gender in relation to recovery, and identified similar gender-related specific elements that enhanced or hindered recovery from GD except for exchanging sex for money for gambling. These findings are explained by a combination of macro and micro-level theories that result in a new conceptualization of RC. We coined the term "Recovery Capital in Action" to show how the "RC toolkit" that individuals employ can hinder or enhance their recovery depending on cultural context, and that gender can be both a negative and a positive RC. Mental health professionals should consider the interplay between gender and the socio-cultural contexts during recovery.

"A lot better than it used to be": A qualitative study of adolescents' dynamic social recovery capital

Background

Substance use recovery is a dynamic process for youth, and social networks are tied to the recovery process. The Recovery Capital for Adolescents Model (RCAM) situates the resources accessible through social networks - social recovery capital (SRC) - in a larger framework of developmentally-informed recovery resources. This study aims to investigate the social network experiences among recovering youth enrolled in a recovery high school to understand how social influences help to build, or act as barriers to building, recovery capital.

Methods

To gain insight into these networks, Social Identity Maps and semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten youth ages 17-19 years (80% male; 50% non-Hispanic White). Study visits were conducted virtually, recorded, transcribed, and thematically analyzed using the RCAM as an organizing framework.

Results

Results supported that adolescent social networks play a unique and multifaceted role in the recovery journey. Three key nuances emerged: change permeates adolescent networks throughout the treatment and recovery process; shared substance use history and non-stigmatizing attitudes play a key role in connecting with others; and SRC is interconnected with human, financial, and community recovery capital.

Conclusions

With adolescent recovery receiving increased attention from policy makers, practitioners, and researchers, the RCAM may be a useful way to contextualize available resources. Findings suggest SRC as a crucial, yet complex component intertwined with all other forms of recovery capital.

Parenting to provide social recovery capital: A qualitative study

BACKGROUND

Although research demonstrates the necessity of social recovery capital (SRC) for youth in recovery, through having family that do not use substances and who support their recovery, the ways in which parents actually enact SRC have not been empirically examined. This qualitative study applied the Recovery Capital Model for Adolescents to group interview data from parent(s) of youth who resolved a substance use disorder (SUD) to explore the ways parents enacted SRC.

METHOD

The interviews were conducted in a prior ethnographic study in which parents of alternative peer group (APG) alumni volunteered to participate in a group interview; five mothers and five fathers of APG alumni participated in the interviews (n=10). Three investigators analyzed the interview transcripts using the constant comparative method to identify family SRC and the specific components parents supported their child's recovery.

RESULTS

The primary themes of parent support of SRC included locus of control, parent growth, and sober/supportive home. Locus of control included parent strategies to leverage youth's participation in treatment/recovery. Parent growth focused on the process of change parents described: from denial to developing insight and learning how to parent a child in addiction. Supportive and structured family included time spent with youth in recovery-related activities and improved communication and relationships.

CONCLUSIONS

Together, these themes suggest a process of parent change that supports an adolescent's recovery trajectory and increases parenting skills and coping. These themes also highlight how the APG structure enabled this process, generating potential hypotheses for future recovery-oriented research to address.

Mothers experiences of the Parenting Under Pressure Program (PuP) in a Residential Therapeutic Community: A qualitative study

Several studies suggest parental substance use, while not always the case, exposes children to a higher risk of physical, psychological, behavioral and emotional problems. Identifying interventions that best support the parent and child needs is imperative. The PuP programme aims to improve family functioning and child outcomes by supporting parents who are or have been drug or alcohol dependent. PuP combines psychological principles relating to parenting, child behavior and parental emotion regulation within a case-management model. The current study was the first evaluation of the PuP program in a residential setting globally. Twenty-three women took part in pre and post-program qualitative interviews. Guilt was a dominant theme across interviews. The principal expectation of participants was to improve their relationships and access to their children. The benefits of the PuP program to the women and their children, as reported by participants, were immediate and direct. As the women progressed through the program, they were visibly building belief in their abilities to parent.