Natural Recovery from Substance Dependency

Moving Parts and Balancing Acts: Building and Maintaining a Collaborative Community-Based Research Partnership in Detroit

“…In the literature, we discovered later, this is explicitly described in economic terms as the building of "recovery capital" (Cloud & Granfield, 2001.…”

“…Relapse into substance abuse has been correlated with social factors such as poor housing status, limited social support, and lack of drug treatment (Mayer et al, 1993), and with reports of family fights or drug use among family members or spouses (Ellis et al, 2004). Conversely, continued remission or successful recovery has been associated with older age and with living in residential treatment programs (Rollins et al, 2005), with reports of families getting along (Ellis et al, 2004), and with other measures of positive social support within local or family networks (Barber & Crisp, 1995;McMahon, 2001;Flynn et al, 2003;Granfield & Cloud, 2001). The concept of recovery capital (Cloud & Granfield, 2001, in fact, explicitly encompasses both the individual and the social levels.…”

“…Conversely, continued remission or successful recovery has been associated with older age and with living in residential treatment programs (Rollins et al, 2005), with reports of families getting along (Ellis et al, 2004), and with other measures of positive social support within local or family networks (Barber & Crisp, 1995;McMahon, 2001;Flynn et al, 2003;Granfield & Cloud, 2001). The concept of recovery capital (Cloud & Granfield, 2001, in fact, explicitly encompasses both the individual and the social levels. As a practical matter, then, successful recovery programs should address situational constraints as well as individual choices.…”

“Once you’ve been there, you’re always recovering”: exploring experiences, outcomes, and benefits of substance misuse recovery

“…Recovery capital has been defined with reference to four key elements: human capital (such as physical and mental wellbeing, skills and employment), social capital (such as family, friends, carers, communities and other support networks), physical capital (such as money and safety) and cultural capital outcomes (such as individual beliefs and identity) (Granfield and Cloud, 1999). Recovery capital also alludes to the need to tackle and improve the wider determinations of health, such as a person's socioeconomic status, health behaviours and experiences of stigma (Cloud and Granfield, 2008).…”

“…Cloud and Granfield (2008) suggest that the greater a person's recovery capital, the more likely they are to become empowered in areas of life to achieve their full potential and an optimal quality of life, and research has begun to explore how and why this may be. For example, Best et al, (2012) employed a range of tools to employ meanings of recovery amongst 100 former alcohol and 100 former heroin users and found that factors relating to social capital (social support and engagement in meaningful activities) were important components of recovery.…”