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You have found 85 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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STUDY 1962 HTM file
The abstinent alcoholic

Classic description of the patient who has sustained abstinence after treatment but is still unhappy, unfulfilled and/or nervously hanging on – in other words, not really ‘recovered’. They formed the majority of patients seen at Connecticut’s alcohol clinics in the 1950s who were not drinking at follow-up.

STUDY 2010 HTM file
Alcohol misusers’ experiences of employment and the benefit system

Substantial barriers to employment were revealed by interviews with alcohol service clients in Britain and with staff working in or with treatment agencies. Holistic recovery rather than just completing treatment was the key. Reviews relevant international research.

REVIEW 2001 PDF file 594Kb
Cycle of change

Its simplicity is beguiling, but does the ubiquitous Prochaska and DiClemente cycle of change model simply describe the change process, or help predict and accelerate it? Professor Robin Davidson casts a sceptical eye over the evidence.

REVIEW 2010 HTM file
Quality of life among opiate-dependent individuals: a review of the literature

The first systematic review of research on the quality of life of opiate users finds this generally improves once they enter substitute prescribing treatments, but that few studies have assessed what counts as a good life from the point of view of the patient.

STUDY 2011 HTM file
What is the role of harm reduction when drug users say they want abstinence?

A team including one of the researchers responsible for the original finding have queried the interpretation of the highly influential report from a national Scottish study that most drug users starting treatment wanted to become abstinent. On the basis of in-depth interviews, they caution that it is just not that simple.

STUDY 2013 HTM file
The assessment of recovery capital: properties and psychometrics of a measure of addiction recovery strengths

Testing in the UK suggested that a questionnaire assessing the ‘recovery capital’ resources which help overcome addiction might underpin more recovery-oriented assessments of services and of client progress and needs – but only a study which followed up patients could confirm this, and do some of the questions assess ability to recover, or recovery itself?

HOT TOPIC 2018 HTM file
Cycle of Change: change promoter or benevolent fiction?

One of our hot topics – essays on important issues which sometimes generate heated debate over the facts or their interpretation. Its simplicity is beguiling, but does the ubiquitous cycle of change model simply describe the change process, or help predict and accelerate it?

MATRIX CELL 2017 HTM file
Drug Treatment Matrix cell A2: Interventions; Generic and cross-cutting issues

Seminal and key studies on features common to psychosocial therapy/support and medical treatment. Investigates where treatment is aiming to get to in the form of ‘recovery’, where it starts from as depicted in the brain-disease model of addiction, and the politics of the two most important British drug treatment studies.

HOT TOPIC 2021 HTM file
‘Dangerous data’: drinking after dependence

First cracked in 1960s London, the orthodoxy that abstinence is the only feasible treatment goal for ‘alcoholics’ seemed shattered in 1973 by evidence that even physically dependent patients could learn to drink in moderation. Controversy was fierce, reaching the US Congress, TV networks and the courts. Explore the history and contested research behind an issue facing every dependent drinker starting treatment.

STUDY 2009 HTM file
Results from two randomized clinical trials evaluating the impact of quarterly recovery management checkups with adult chronic substance users

In the USA two studies have shown that quarterly check-ups on former patients help identify the need for and motivate further treatment, but gains in substance use/problem reductions only became evident when improved procedures were introduced, and even then remained modest.


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