Roads to Recovery is a Recovery Community Organization, an independent, nonprofit corporation led by people in and supportive of recovery. Our goal is to develop and mobilize resources within and outside of the recovery community to increase the prevalence and quality of long-term recovery from alcohol and other drug addiction. Our strategies to achieve this goal include public education, policy advocacy and peer-based recovery support services. Roads to Recovery is putting a face on recovery, and showing communities how recovery is possible. We are building services and supports to fill gaps in the system of care, and to help people initiate and sustain long-term recovery. Our recovery center is the hub from which we provide peer-based recovery support services and promote a positive culture of recovery from substance use disorders. Our staff consists of people with “lived experience” of addiction and recovery who serve as recovery mentors and system navigators. They provide non-clinical recovery management services to help people:
1) improve health, 2) build “recovery capital” (internal and external supports that reinforce recovery), 3) actively manage their own recovery from addiction, 4) reduce relapse rates, 5) overcome barriers to access to needed services and supports, and 6) re-intervene quickly when problems do occur. Our services help people to increase their motivation for recovery, initiate recovery, support ongoing recovery efforts, and sustain recovery over the long-term. People can use our services before, during, after, or instead of formal treatment, depending on their needs and preferences. Services include informational supports, focused on skill-building and self-efficacy, instrumental supports, to help people gain access to other services they need, emotional supports focused on building resilience, heath and hope, and affiliational supports to reduce isolation, reduce stigma, provide models for recovery and promote a recovery culture. Our evidence-based recovery curriculum is the Living in Balance program from Hazelden. A unique feature of our Roads to Recovery Center is that most of our staff have experience as clinical service providers and choose to work in a peer-based model because of its practicality and flexibility.
