MGH/Harvard Med School Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Session Description: During the past 50 years a great deal has been learned about the etiology, epidemiology, typology, and phenomenology of addiction that has uncovered its complex causes, natural history, and highly variable presentation and clinical course. These novel findings have given rise to a number of clinical paradigm shifts and increased awareness of the many pathways through and out of addiction and into remission and long-term recovery. Also, while the concept of addiction “recovery” has been culturally commonplace during this period, reflecting a general process of salubrious change as individuals achieve more stable remission, in more recent years researchers have begun systematically to delineate formal operational definitions of the recovery construct in order to investigate and unravel its mobilizers and active ingredients. This talk will review briefly the new knowledge gained during the past 50 years and describe how this has led to a new movement of addiction recovery science that promises to better inform the nature and scope of the type of clinical and public health infrastructure needed to address it.
Learning Objectives:
After this activity participants should be able to
Describe the shift in the cultural status of addiction recovery to scientific investigation
Discuss the milestones in addiction recovery
Name three types of recovery support services that are shown to enhance addiction remission and recovery