Spread the Word! The “What is Recovery?’ Survey is Coming Soon!
LifeRing is excited to partner with federally funded scientists on the first nationwide survey about recovery from alcohol and other drug problems. Specifically, the project’s goal is to learn how people experience and define recovery. This has never been done before. Note that for this project, the word “recovery” is used as a general term to describe the experience of anyone who used to have a problem with alcohol and/or drugs and no longer does, not just people who consider themselves ‘in recovery’.
For the survey results to be as useful as possible to the recovery community and to the field in general, it is very important that as many people as possible participate in the project, and that the researchers get responses from a broad range of individuals and experiences.
To that end, LifeRing is pleased to be one of several organizations nationwide that are helping the study team get the word out about the survey by informing you about the project. The 20 minute anonymous survey will be administered on the web at the project’s website http://www.whatisrecovery.org/ starting on July 16, 2012. Your answers will be kept strictly confidential and all the results reported in group form. We'll remind you of this important survey closer to the date, but you can visit the website now to get a taste of it.
Your experiences are important! We hope that you will consider taking the survey to contribute to this landmark project. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact Kathleen Gargan at liferingcolorado@gmail.com.
The problem that I have with the survey is that it is “multiple choice,” and that doesn’t really let people with ideas far out of the mainstream participate w/out the fear that their opinions will, through this survey, be processed into something that resembles one of the mainstream opinions.
For instance, the very first question asks what one considers oneself with respect to addiction/recovery. The four choices are “in recovery,” “recovered,” “used to have an alcohol or drug problem, but don’t any more,” and “in medication-assisted recovery.” I, personally, don’t fit any of these categories precisely, and I’d like to be able to say that. I’d also like to participate in this survey. So, it puts me in a bind from the first question.
Also, the first three categories of answer “…definitely belongs in my definition of recovery,” “…somewhat belongs in my definition,” and “may belong in others'” may be used to describe objectively how people see their recovery and others’ recovery *as practiced.* However, just because I may find something useful in my recovery, and be using it, I still may think that that thing DOES NOT belong in a *prescriptive* definition of recovery. So, I end up answering with the fourth column, so that it’s clear that I don’t endorse, say, telling new patients that they *must* do such and such, or they will fail–as, I believe, most of us have been told.
This survey is a nice start, but it is very flawed. It’s like people don’t think about this at all.
Kevin Watson