[Excerpted from, 9 Keys to Addiction Recovery: Health Psychology ©2023]

Our 3^rd key: our safety net.

We humans are social creatures – even us introverts. (Me, too.) We may be among the most independent – but where did that get us when we were in active addiction? If we couldn’t tunnel out of that on our own, we may not want to attempt recovery alone, either.

If you are an introvert – just do this in the introverted way. There’s no need to be regularly in the company of many; you can arrange to meet with just one, a sponsor or a healthy friend.

Going it alone, though – that’s a non-plan, headed for relapse. You need at least one person whom you can call or text and say, “having a bad day [or moment], need to talk.”

Having a system of truly understanding people – those also in recovery – is ideal, and on this basis the 12-step programs were developed. You can also engage in an online, peer-led recovery room, unless of course Internet is your addiction…then, you’re better off meeting people in the physical world.

Think about your social system. (Again, we’ll do more with this in the exercises section below.) Who makes up your inner circle? Proximity is no longer an issue; even if a person lives far from you, they’re readily accessible by video chat. (Zoom-room 12-step meetings are also now a widespread trend, especially in the wake of the pandemic.)

Think creatively. Is your cat part of your support? A friendly neighbor? How about your ancestors? (More on this in our final key.)

In the biopsychosocial model of recovery, social recovery capital is critically important; make sure that you have at least a few reliable, healthy people, ideally in recovery, so if you’re in need and one isn’t available, you’ve got a couple more to call.

Recovery contagion is a thing. It’s catching, in a very good way. While your recovery is a journey of personal growth and change, it must be socially supported. Best and Ivers (2022) identified 3 key components of recovery capital: personal, social, and community, which are overlapping and integrate with one another; they further delineated recovery as a social and community effort, one requiring a collective capability and producing a social contagion – or, ‘recovery contagion’.

Gilbert (2022) also identified social support as a critical component of recovery capital, including a supportive recovery program such as 12-step; he also included some form of spirituality, or presence of meaning (our first key), and physical capital, or body care (our next key). The Important People and Activities Instrument (Francis et al., 2022) is used to measure ‘social recovery capital’, emphasizing the importance of a supportive social network to recovery; it measures one’s social network in terms of abstinence behaviors, as well as its basic structure and importance to the person in recovery.

Surround yourself in some way with people in recovery, even if your addiction is different – and even if they’re in recovery from mental illness, for example, rather than addiction itself. A recovery mindset, focused on wellness and healthy relationships with self and others, is a contagion to be actively sought out – and shared.

Loneliness is the true pandemic, acknowledged long before Covid, and widespread. Loneliness and isolation are recipes for relapse; in a study by Gutkind et al. (2022), persons with moderate or severe loneliness had a significantly higher alcohol or cannabis use frequency than those who reported seldom or never feeling lonely.

An online group of strangers you’ve never met may be extraordinarily helpful…but people you know in the physical world, who know you, will always be more significant. Keep this uppermost in mind – and (re)construct your social safety net.

One person at a time.

The perception of social support in itself is protective; if we perceive ourselves to be supported by others, we’re less likely to become addicted or to relapse. In their review of 70 research articles on the effects of social connectedness on alcohol use disorder, Mathes Winnicki et al. (2023) looked at 4 socially-related categories: perceived support, emotional intimacy, social rejection and acceptance, and social behaviors. They found a high degree of significance for the first two in particular, perceived support and emotional intimacy, as protective factors against excessive alcohol use.

In India, Rathinam & Ezhumalai (2022) conducted a qualitative interview study of 60 adults in treatment, primarily for alcohol use disorder; they determined that perceived social support was essential for preventing relapse and maintaining recovery. Jia et al. (2023) conducted a 3-month study of 415 adults from 2 drug rehabilitation centers in the Chinese province south of Shanghai; they found that social support, as well as exercise self-efficacy or capability and quality of life, contributed to decreased cravings and relapse behavior, thereby enhancing recovery. (We’ll be looking at the role of exercise in our next key.)

Rural communities constitute a particularly challenging atmosphere for recovery, including barriers to social connectedness and challenges in creating a new social network. In a focus group study by Palombi et al. (2022), conducted in north-central US and including people in both short- and long-term recovery, positive social capital was identified as a critical element for recovery, and treatment or self-help groups as well as clinical support were frequently specified, alongside the need to reduce social isolation and community stigma.

Adolescents and young adults may be even more in need of a positive social support system for recovery, when peer influence is at an all-time high; social influences, substance use, and loneliness have all been correlated (Bonar et al., 2022), while a Norwegian study of 2,588 youth and young adults (Haugstvedt, 2022) found social support to be protective for mental health risk including addiction. Adolescent smartphone addiction has also been associated with loneliness, with a character trait of loneliness as a predictor while state or conditional loneliness and smartphone addiction contribute to one another (Hu & Xiang, 2022).

Parents are also an important part of adolescents’ social recovery capital, if the parents themselves are healthy, of course. In a study of youth in recovery, Hennessy et al. (2022) identified 3 components of parental support: locus of control (parents’ leverage on youth participation in treatment), parent growth (from denial to insight and education), and sober/supportive home (including improved relationship and shared time for recovery efforts).

Adolescent social networks have their own unique role. The study of Jurinsky et al. (2023) highlighted change as the nature of adolescence, no more so than in recovery where social networks are highly changeable through every stage; at the heart of this network is the shared commonality of struggle with addiction and unconditional acceptance of one another.

And so, what steps can we take to (re)create a healthy and supportive social network, and to build our social recovery capital?

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Exercises:

We begin with clarification: a sociogram. In the center of a blank sheet of paper, write your name, and draw a circle around it, leaving room for a few other names to be added within. Draw another ring around this one, and at least two more, until you have a sort of target design of concentric circles. In the central circle with your name, add the names of those in your current inner circle – those you feel are your closest relationships. Put each name closer to yours or to the outer edge of that circle accordingly. Then, the next layer, and more names; and, so on, for the other layers, including the area outside that last layer if you wish. These are the people in your life; acquaintances aren’t included. Some of these you may actively dislike, but they’re still somehow in your life. Plot your map accordingly. When finished, reflect. Which names would you like to have closer to yours? Which ones further away? How do you want to alter this social system of yours?

Meditate on what a healthy social system looks like. Sit comfortably, distractions minimized, mind quiet, your breathing slow and steady. Begin with the idea of social system. Contemplate, in this peaceful state, what you’d like your own social network to be. Do you have a really close friend? Do you want one? Do you like a lot of people around, or just one or two? What about those you can always count on, the one you call when you feel uncomfortable, or need help? When you can do no more with this, take a deep, cleansing breath to be alert again. Then, reflect in your journal.

Naturally, you’ll want to build a recovery-oriented social network. This can include people in recovery, ideally some who are long-term; it can also include anyone who understands the concept of recovery and can be supportive to you, whether your therapist or other treatment providers, your family or friends who’ve taken the time to learn what they can, or other individuals who are positive influences. Any type of recovery program you’re in is a good place to start; think also about anyone who’s known you for a long time and can be supportive to your recovery.

Pick one healthy activity that interests you. Find a group for that activity and join them. It could be a sport or other outdoor activity, or a hobby, movie club, graphic design – whatever really interests you. In getting involved in a group of likeminded people, you have a new potential circle of friends.

Volunteer, or similar. In getting involved in an activity that helps someone else (or those puppies at the animal shelter), you’ll also meet other people doing the same, who can be a healthy part of your new social system.

If you’re religious or spiritual, or were in the past, consider joining a relevant group; this can be an instant new social network that will surely be supportive of your recovery.

References:

Best D and Ivers J (2022). Inkspots and ice cream cones: a model of recovery contagion and growth. Addiction Research & Theory 30:3, 155-161. https://doi.org/10.1080/16066359.2021.1986699

Bonar EE, Walton MA, Carter PM et al. (2022). Longitudinal within- and between-person associations of substance use, social influences, and loneliness among adolescents and emerging adults who use drugs. Addiction Research & Theory 30:4, 262-267. https://doi.org/10.1080/16066359.2021.2009466

Francis MW, Bourdon J, Chan G et al. (2022). Deriving a Measure of Social Recovery Capital from the Important People and Activities Instrument: Construction and Psychometric Properties. Alcohol and Alcoholism 57:3, 322-329. https://doi.org/10.1093/alcalc/agac014

Gilbert WC (2022). Voices from the rooms and programs: Recovery capital speaks. Journal of Social Work Practice in the Addictions 22:1, 53-67. https://doi.org/10.1080/1533256X.2021.1946332

Gutkind S, Gorfinkel LR, and Hasin DS (2022). Prospective effects of loneliness on frequency of alcohol and marijuana use. Addictive Behaviors 124:107115. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2021.107115

Haugstvedt H (2022). ‘With a little social support…’: Assessing the moderating effect of social support on risk factors and mental well-being among youth. European Journal of Social Work. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691457.2022.2152188

Hennessy EA, Jurinsky J, Simpson H et al. (2022). Parenting to provide social recovery capital: A qualitative study. Addiction Research & Theory 30:5, 368-374. https://doi.org/10.1080/16066359.2022.2055000

Hu Z and Xiang Y (2022). Who Is the Chief Culprit, Loneliness, or Smartphone Addiction? Evidence from Longitudinal Study and Weekly Diary Method. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-022-00892-0

Jia D, Zhang K, and Xu Y (2023). The Relationship Between Social Support and Relapse Tendency Among Those Who Struggle with Drug Addiction: Multiple Mediators of Exercise Self-Efficacy and Health-Related Quality of Life. Journal of Drug Issues. https://doi.org/10.1177/00220426231152912

Jurinsky J, Cowie K, Blyth S et al. (2023). “A lot better than it used to be”: A qualitative study of adolescents’ dynamic social recovery capital. Addiction Research & Theory 31:2, 77-83. https://doi.org/10.1080/16066359.2022.2114076

Mathes Winnicki BM, Hinds Z, Newberger NG, et al. (2023). Prospective associations between perceived social connection and alcohol use: a scoping review. Addiction Research & Theory 31:4, 250-259. https://doi.org/10.1080/16066359.2022.2140799

Palombi LC, Irish A, Bowen EA et al. (2022). ‘That’s got me to where I am today’: Examining the role of social capital in rural recovery. Addiction Research & Theory 30:4, 268-278. https://doi.org/10.1080/16066359.2021.2021400

Rathinam B and Ezhumalai S (2022). Perceived Social Support Among Abstinent Individuals with Substance Use Disorder. Journal of Psychosocial Rehabilitation and Mental Health 9, 81-87. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40737-021-00237-5