You have found 119 entries after clicking the GO button or a search link in a hot topic. Sorted by the main topic addressed, the list shows in orange the type of entry, year the original document was published (or if one of our own documents, the year last updated), and the type of file you will download when you click on the title. In blue is the document’s title followed by a brief description.
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REVIEW 2000 PDF file 140Kb
Attending AA: encourage but don't coerce
A synthesis of studies which tested Alcoholics Anonymous groups or AA-based residential programmes against formal/no treatment suggests outcomes are similar to other treatments when the drinker chooses these options. Coercion may be counterproductive.
REVIEW ABSTRACT 2009 HTM file
Peer-based addiction recovery support: history, theory, practice, and scientific evaluation
This monograph is likely to become the handbook for the growing peer-based recovery movement in the UK. For administrators, the approaches it reviews offer a way to reconcile decreasing per-patient resources with a policy agenda now focused on reintegration and recovery.
REVIEW 2005 PDF file 826Kb
Self help: don't leave it to the patients
Keith Humphreys and colleagues report on a workgroup of US experts on substance abuse self-help organisations. Main conclusion: self-help groups are too valuable to leave to chance. They should be actively promoted and facilitated by treatment services and policymakers.
STUDY 2009 HTM file
Changing network support for drinking: Network Support Project 2-year follow-up
Treatment services do not have to adopt, or ask patients to adopt, the belief system on which 12-step groups are founded in order to effectively encourage patients to tap in to the social support offered by these groups and improve their chances of sustained abstinence.
STUDY 2006 HTM file
Cross-cultural gateway to recovery: a qualitative study of recovery experiences in international AA online groups
Why do AA members join on-line groups which meet 'virtually' over the internet rather than or as well as face-to-face groups? Based on his own experiences and interviews with other members, an AA member supplies some answers, among which are the enrichment provided by international perspectives.
STUDY 2010 HTM file
The Alcohol Concern Smart Recovery Pilot Project final evaluation report
Austerity plus recovery plus curtailed treat equals more mutual aid is the formula for ways out of dependence in the post-credit crunch 2010s. But with only 12-step groups, the offer is limited. What will it take for a cognitive-behavioural alternative to flourish in England was the question for this pilot project.
STUDY 2012 HTM file
Does active referral by a doctor or 12-step peer improve 12-step meeting attendance? Results from a pilot randomised control trial
In the context of current UK policy, this is a key study, testing the ambition to extend recovery beyond formal treatment by systematically linking patients to mutual aid groups, the main way it is being suggested commissioners can square the circle of doing more (recovery is seen as a whole-life transformation) with less.
REVIEW 2014 HTM file
Peer recovery support for individuals with substance use disorders: assessing the evidence
For such a widely implemented and widely supported adjunct to formal treatment, the revelation from this review is how little evidence there is for involving former problem substance users in promoting recovery from similar problems – a lack which may simply reflect the paucity of adequate research.
HOT TOPIC 2016 HTM file
The therapeutic potential of patients and clients
One of our hot topics offering background and analysis on important issues which sometimes generate heated debate. The recovery agenda emphasises the transformation of problem substance users into solutions to those problems through peer support and involvement in their own care – but perhaps at a deeper level, the patient or client has always been the author of their own recovery.
REVIEW 2014 HTM file
Estimating the efficacy of Alcoholics Anonymous without self-selection bias: an instrumental variables re-analysis of randomized clinical trials
12-step fellowships offer a way to reconcile shrunken resources with the desire to get more patients safely out of treatment. Accounting for the self-selection bias which has obscured AA’s impacts, this synthesis of US trials finds that attending more meetings after treatment boosts abstinence. Why then is research equivocal on whether promoting attendance improves drink-related outcomes?
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