If you haven’t heard of Natural Recovery, it is the “phenomenon” where substance abusers stop abusing substances without having received any sort of treatment or 12 step group attendance. Natural Recovery is also known as Self Change, Self Recovery, Spontaneous Remission, Auto-Remission, and other names.
There is a lot of peer reviewed research on natural recovery from alcohol abuse, but it’s often harder to find the research on natural recovery from illicit drug use, which is why I’m happy that my friends at SJRH turned me on to this compilation of research. I’ve seen a few of these studies before, but many I haven’t.
Although there are a few methodological problems in here, the main thrust of these studies is that when we actually use a control group of heroin abusers who haven’t been to treatment (or didn’t stay long enough to be classified as treated) we usually end up seeing that the rate of recovery for both treated and untreated heroin abusers is essentially identical. In some cases, the data suggests that your chances of recovery are better if you never receive treatment.
Anyways, this research is very significant because it addresses what is known as the most addictive drug – heroin. And it shows that people stop using it without medical help. And that calls into question the common knowledge that “you can’t quit on your own” or “you can’t quit without professional help”. Historically, people have, and they still do today. We just don’t hear about it that much because they don’t present themselves to medical authorities, and they often keep their stories of natural recovery private because of the stigma associated with the “incurable disease of addiction”.
Citation: NATURAL RECOVERY FROM HEROIN ADDICTION: A REVIEW OF THE INCIDENCE LITERATURE by Dan Waldorf & Patrick Biernacki
We just don’t hear about it that much because they don’t present themselves to medical authorities, and they often keep their stories of natural recovery private because of the stigma associated with the “incurable disease of addiction”.
How is this measurable??
And where do you get the information that the rate of recovery of the treated and untreated heroin abusers is essentially identical?
I don’t doubt for a second there are people out there who have abused drugs and stopped on their own… for now… or are using some sort of maintenance substance … but the evidence of support, especially group support, of any type, has results as good as they get for this field of study. I am open minded to anything but this information is weak at best. I’d love to know if you have anything better than what you have shared here. It’s not compelling what so ever even to me, someone extremely open minded to all recovery ideas.
Hi Lori,
It appears the link in this post was broken – I have restored it with a new link to the same information, so you can follow that link now and judge for yourself, which of course was the original intent of this blog post – to point my readers to this interesting information about heroin use and cessation.
You ask “how is this measurable?”, and there’s a simple answer to that. We can find people who have ever had problems, and then ask them how they stopped, like the NIAAA did with alcoholics in this study: NESARC. The point is that rather than starting simply with a population of people seeking medical help, instead you go directly to the general population. When we do that, we see that most people change their substance use habits without professional help.
How do we know whether people tell others about quitting or not? Is that measurable? It’s tough, but one approach asked people whether they knew of others who quit an addiction on their own. Of the people polled, 82% knew someone with alcoholism, and 90% said they knew someone with a cigarette smoking problem. About 85% of people knew someone who’d quit smoking cigarettes on their own, and this number is very close to the actual number of people who quit smoking on their own. However, only 32% knew someone who resolved a drinking problem on their own – and this does not fit with the data – we know that 75% of people with alcohol dependence recover without help. Since the people polled knew about the same number of smokers and alcoholics, yet their knowledge of self-change was drastically different for the two groups, it’s reasonable to conclude that people who naturally recovery from substance use problems other than cigarettes probably keep quiet about it. [citation: Awareness of self-change as a pathway to recovery for alcohol abusers:results from five different groups. John A Cunningham, Linda C Sobell, Mark B Sobell, 1998, Journal Of Addictive Behaviors).
I hope this answers your questions.
Thanks,
Steven
Me and my girlfriend decided to go into NA together for the first time 4 months ago. I took to the program and she did not. I quit drugs alcohol and cigarettes all cold turkey. All i did was go to two meetings a day and follow the program to a tee. She on the other hand did not she slowed down a little and smoked more cigarettes couple meetings a week, didnt like all the people in the meetings, never read the book, basically rejected the program. We have since broken up , she chose drugs over her man and her family. Help was staring her in the face and she thought she could quit on her own…well she couldnt. I dont believe that anyone can be totally abstinent for any length of time without some sort of program that they follow
diligently and with vigilance. Relapse will always occur at some point down the road. When drugs and alcohol are presented to an addicted mind and there are no consequences for there use and no repercussions and no one will find out, 90% will take the drug unless a program is instilled for a period of time….please give me your feed back