Choose who’s in your circle: how women’s relationship actions during and following residential treatment help create recovery-oriented networks

ABSTRACT

Women in recovery from substance use disorders often have difficulty establishing recovery-supportive networks. This exploratory study uses qualitative thematic analysis to examine how 88 women in recovery describe the actions they take to manage their personal social networks 12 months after intake into residential substance use treatment. Participants describe disconnecting or limiting contact with recovery-endangering people and adding recovery-supportive people to their networks as primary relationship actions for maintaining recovery. Their actions to build recovery-supportive networks can provide a focus for clinical work to help them become integrated into their communities.

KEYWORDS:

• Personal social network
• relationship actions
• residential treatment
• substance use
• women in recovery

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Study funded by National Institute on Drug Abuse [R01DA022994].