From “Double Trouble” to “Dual Recovery”: Integrating Models of Recovery in Addiction and Mental Health

ABSTRACT

Conceptualizations and approaches to the treatment of co-occurring psychiatric and substance use disorders are currently in transition. With the dawning of the contemporary “recovery movement,” both the mental health and addictions fields are increasingly moving toward acknowledging that people with mental illnesses and addictions are first and foremost people rather than their diagnoses or disorders, subsequently replacing such phrases as “mentally ill chemical abusers” with person-first language. To follow this basic principle in practice rather than merely in rhetoric, we need to accept that it is the people with these experiences who know best what is entailed both in living through and in recovering from these disorders. As one step in this direction, this article reviews two models of recovery, one in mental health and one in addictions, which were developed in collaboration with advocacy communities in each of these fields. These models are then integrated to allow for one model of dual recovery for people with co-occurring disorders as a step in moving practice toward the recovery orientation being called for in both fields by the federal government and by people in recovery themselves.

KEYWORDS:

• Recovery
• integration
• transformation
• strengths–based
• citizenship