Opportunities for Enhancing Access and Efficacy of Peer Sponsorship in Substance Use Disorder Recovery

Abstract

Substance use disorders (SUDs) are characterized by an inability to decrease a substance use (e.g., alcohol or opioids) despite negative repercussions. SUDs are clinically diagnosable, hazardous, and considered a public health issue. Sponsorship, a specialized type of peer mentorship, is vital in the recovery process and originates from 12-step fellowship programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA). To investigate sponsorship relationship practices and to identify design opportunities for digitally-mediated peer support, we conducted 27 in-depth interviews with members of AA and NA. We identified five key sponsorship relationship practices relevant for designing social computing tools to support sponsorship and recovery: 1) assessing dyadic compatibility, 2) managing sponsorship with or without technology, 3) establishing boundaries, 4) building a peer support network, and 5) managing anonymity. We identify social computing and digitally-mediated design opportunities and implications.

The Online Authenticity Paradox: What Being "Authentic" on Social Media Means, and Barriers to Achieving It

“…For example (as described in our results section 4.3), P11 and P28 both experienced a lack of support from their online networks after posting about difcult negative experiences on social media, which discouraged them from posting similar content in the future. Instead, research has shown that people turn to small groups of close connections or private channels [37,41,80], anonymous online sharing [4,46], and multiple or separate online identities [20,35,79] to achieve online sharing that feels authentic to them. In what follows, we describe future directions for design and research that can help to resolve some of the tensions the online authenticity paradox highlights.…”

The Impact of Financial Factors on the After-Sales Service of Agricultural Machinery: A Case Study of Chinese Agricultural Machinery in South Africa

“…On the other hand, Savings and overdraft facilities are found to be insignificant at p = 0.05, which means they are relatively insignificant in comparison with other financial factors. These findings are supported by Heyer, Schmitt, Dombrowski, and Yarosh (2020), who emphasized that growth in most businesses is due to access to credit facilities, grants, and sponsorship. Heyer et al (2020) and Omondi-Ochieng (2020) report that donation and sponsorship account for 87.5% of enterprises' financial performance.…”

Fragments of the Past: Curating Peer Support with Perpetrators of Domestic Violence

“…Nicholson et al's approach in [58] provides a conceptual framework for training community peers to act as 'guardians' to disseminate preventative strategies to their community to increase cyber resilience. Heyer et al have also recently highlighted strategies for social computing tools to support dyadic mentorship for recovery from alcohol or drug dependency [38]. However, prior research has yet to investigate how technology might support and expand safe interventions for supporting the desistance of abusive behaviours towards others, despite there being calls to do so [30,66].…”

“…To mitigate the challenges for online support groups, some scholars have explored a hybrid-approach to better understand how technology can leverage existing face-to-face peer support networks and social structures [20,38,59]. In the community-driven approach of Circles of Support and Accountability (CoSA), a circle of trained volunteers connected via a digital network work with sex offenders to minimise alienation and support reintegration after incarceration with the aim of preventing sexual reoffending in their community [84].…”

“…However, the loss of positive peer groups, for instance at the end of a DVPP, has been identified as a significant risk factor for the reuse of abusive and harmful behaviours towards victim-survivors [1,54,55]. Peer support networks following the conclusion of behaviour change interventions are one attempt to extend the life of these relationships as these require peers to share emotional, social or practical advice, whether located in-person or hosted online [38,60]. Nonetheless, peer support networks, particularly those facilitated through online platforms, are subject to their own challenges.…”