Recovery Community Organizations

Recovery community organizations are independent, not-for-profit, community-based organizations that are led and run by representatives of local communities of recovery on behalf of the recovery community. The broadly defined recovery community (people in long-term recovery and their families, friends, and allies including recovery-focused professionals in the addiction and recovery field) is increasingly composed of discrete segments that span religious, spiritual, and secular pathways of recovery. The sole purpose of a recovery community organization is to mobilize the resources of the recovery community to increase the likelihood that people seeking or needing long-term recovery from addiction get the help that they need to achieve it.

Many times, people in long-term recovery or family members created recovery community organizations in response to unmet needs or crises in their communities. These organizations often existed as voluntary advocacy and service organizations for some time before they secured funding to provide support and carry out mobilizing and organizing activities on a more formal basis.

There are a number of national organizations that address the needs of people who have taken a particular pathway to recovery, and many of these organizations have state and local affiliates. For example, the National Alliance of Methadone Advocates (http://www.nama.org), Advocates for Recovery through Medicine, the National Alliance of Advocates for Buprenorphine Treatment, and the Opioid Dependence Resource Center all provide assistance for those in medication-assisted recovery. Other national organizations are focused on supporting recovery for particular ethnic groups. An example of such an organization is White Bison, whose mission is focused on recovery advocacy and support in Native American communities. The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence has a number of affiliates that have spawned or sponsored the development of local recovery community organizations. At the national level, Faces & Voices of Recovery is an organization representing recovery community organizations and the recovery community. Most local, state, and regional recovery community organizations are part of this national campaign.

Recovery community organizations take many forms. They differ significantly from addiction treatment organizations and recovery mutual aid groups. Recovery community organizations are independent, meaning that they are usually not involved in organizations and activities that go beyond recovery-focused public education, policy advocacy, and the delivery of recovery support services. These organizations are led by individuals chosen by representatives of the recovery community, are committed to recovery-related social change (e.g., recovery-focused community education, advocating prorecovery social policies), and invest considerable resources in organizing recovery resources within their local communities.

Recovery community organizations are not a program of personal recovery. They do not promote a particular pathway to recovery, and their volunteers do not act as Twelve-Step sponsors in their volunteer role. Recovery community organizations celebrate the multiple pathways to recovery and offer resources to people across those frameworks of recovery. If a recovery community organization offers services to individuals and their families, they are peer-based, nonclinical recovery support services. Recovery community organization staff and volunteers do not provide professional assessment, addiction counseling, or related clinical services.

Other distinctive characteristics of recovery community organizations are their conscious effort to achieve cultural diversity, promotion of leadership development within the recovery community, and emphasis on people's recovery potential rather than on their pathologies. These organizations also promote the development of local core recovery values and ethical guidelines to govern the organizational and volunteer decision making in advocacy and peer-support activities.

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