‘It’s not 9 to 5 recovery’: the role of a recovery community in producing social bonds that support recovery

Abstract

Aim

To understand how the social networks of a new recovery community can help sustain recovery, focusing on processes of social identity change, in the context of the wider UK recovery movement.

Methods

A cross-sectional, mixed-methods social network analysis (SNA) of ego-network sociograms to map network transitions, using retrospective measures. Ten men were recruited from a peer-worker programme, in the South Ayrshire Alcohol and Drug Partnership (ADP), West of Scotland. Network measures were compared between two timepoints, just prior to current recovery and the present time. Measures included size and density, closeness of members, and their positive or negative influence, proportion of alcohol and other drug (AOD) using and recovery peers, and extent of separate subgroups. These were complemented with qualitative interview data.

Findings

There was a significant transition in network composition, with the replacing of AOD-using peers with recovery peers and a broader transformation from relationships being framed as negative to positive. However, there was no significant transition in network structure, with AOD-using and recovery networks both consisting of strong ties and a similar density of connections between people in the networks.

Conclusions

The transition in network composition between pre-recovery and the present indicates a different set of social influences, while the similarities in network structure indicate that the recovery network replaced the role of the using network in providing close bonds. This helped reduce social isolation experienced in early-recovery and provided a pathway into more structured opportunities for volunteering and employment.

Keywords:

• Addiction
• recovery
• alcohol
• drugs
• networks
• identity

Acknowledgements

All co-authors were involved from the earliest stages of the project and contributed substantially to the study design, analysis, and review of multiple manuscript drafts. This project would not have been possible without the collaboration of Faye Murfet, the ADP Co-ordinator for South Ayrshire Council, who facilitated access to participants from the ADP Volunteer Peer Worker Programme. We thank the study participants for sharing their time and their stories.

We are grateful to Dr Ruth Lewis, Dr Emma Stewart, Dr Alison Parkes, and Dr Lauren Carters-White for providing thoughtful and useful comments on the manuscript as part of an internal peer review process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was undertaken in the context of a PhD studentship awarded by the Medical Research Council to the first author, based in the Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow. The relevant project funding codes are MC_UU_00022/1 (Complexity in Health Improvement) and MC_UU_00022/3 (Social Relationships and Health Improvement). Mark McCann was supported by Medical Research Council partnership grant MC_PC_13027.