Hope and Substance Abuse Recovery: The Impact of Agency and Pathways within an Abstinent Communal-Living Setting

Abstract

Hope is commonly divided into two constructs: agency, defined as goal-directed energy, and pathways, defined as the ability to create paths to a goal. To date, only two studies have examined the utility of hope in substance abuse recovery, and the present investigation builds on this small literature by assessing hope beliefs within a larger and more diverse sample of adults in recovery. This study examined how two hope constructs of agency and pathways related to substance use abstinence among 90 new residents of communal-living recovery homes (i.e., Oxford Houses) who completed two waves of data assessment. Results indicated that agency scores significantly predicted alcohol use at Wave 1, but pathway scores failed to predict drug or alcohol use at this time point. Additionally, agency and pathway scores predicted drug (but not alcohol use) at an 8-month follow-up assessment. These findings indicated that participants' hope may be linked to substance use at later stages of recovery. In addition, these results suggested a stronger relationship between hope and drug as opposed to alcohol use at this time point. Implications for substance abuse recovery are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• hope
• substance abuse recovery
• Oxford House

Portions of this article were based on a master's thesis by the first author under the direction of the second author. Funding was made possible in part through National Institute on Drug Abuse grants #5F31DA16037 and # R01DA13231.