At the heart of the RCSP grantees' work is a simple belief: Recovery from addiction is:

• Real
• Valuable and
• At the heart of RCSP work.

In the beginning, RCSP projects asked: What does it mean to place recovery at the center of a recovery community group's effort? What, in fact, is recovery? And, whatever recovery means in the context of a recovery community initiative, what does it mean in terms of safeguarding the personal recovery of a group's members?

Recovery as the Center of the Effort

People in the recovery community see recovery as a source of personal and group power. It generates shared energy.

Most individuals in recovery have a very clear idea of what recovery means for them. It means what works for them. These convictions are deeply held. If abstinence is what works for you, then sobriety is at the core of your personal definition of recovery. If methadone maintenance has given you back your life, then methadone maintenance is at the heart of your personal definition of recovery.

Most grantees concluded, sometimes after a struggle, that the recovery community should not be in the business of challenging or changing anyone’s personal definition of recovery. Efforts in RCSP projects to define recovery on a group level involved ongoing dialogue that frequently expanded the concept to include multiple recovery styles and stages.

A number of projects were reluctant to adopt any definition that would have the effect of excluding people who didn’t fit the criteria, or who put the recovery community group in the position of deciding who “qualified.” Others felt that adopting a definition would be to feed into the already fractured nature of the recovery and treatment communities.

As a result of many discussions, several trends emerged:

• Most RCSP projects did not adopt a definition of recovery.
• Some dropped organizational language relating to sobriety or abstinence as being too limiting.
• Others engaged in continuing internal and external dialogue about different styles and stages of recovery, deliberately moving away from language based on a specific model of recovery, especially when they felt it was having the effect of alienating and/or stigmatizing parts of the community.
• All projects emphasized protecting recovery and being alert to situations that might harm anyone’s recovery. Groups and individuals alike are obligated to protect members’ recovery.