Ireland geared to addiction treatment but not recovery, expert claims

Professor Jo-Hanna Ivers said: "People are going into treatment with nothing and then leaving with nothing and then we are all horrified that they relapse." File picture: Maxwell Photography

Ireland is geared towards addiction treatment, but not towards addiction recovery, with a major conference at Trinity College Dublin today to hear that more support services need to be put in place to cut the number of people who relapse.

The organiser of the conference, TCD professor Jo-Hanna Ivers, who will present on the Irish context, said there appears to be a lack of political will to turn treatment into longer term recovery - particularly for those who do not have "recovery capital", such as good working relationships and education or work prospects.

"We have a National Drugs Strategy that looks at reducing harm and supporting recovery and on a very basic, crude level there are 50 actions in the document and something like three refer to developing recovery in Ireland," she said.

Prof. Ivers said the references to treatment are clear and deliverable, whereas recovery does not appear to have the same clarity or resources attached.

She said in reality, many treatment programmes are short, and the level of support required by some people cannot be fitted into something of 12 weeks duration.

She also said there is a shortage of data in this country to accurately gauge how many people who complete treatment make a full recovery and do not relapse back into addiction.

Prof. Ivers said work needs to be done on developing "recovery capital" that would assist someone before and after detox and treatment.

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She referred to connections in the community, relationships and civic engagement, adding: "We know that people who engage with education tend to do really well, similarly with those with prospects of employment.

"So they have this recovery capital - what we are trying to do is try to get treatment services involved with developing recovery capital. People are going into treatment with nothing and then leaving with nothing and then we are all horrified that they relapse."

She said there was a place for harm reduction but that there needed to be broader consideration of vulnerable people, including women in addiction and those who have experienced trauma earlier in their lives, and services to assist them to make a full recovery.