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 ...