For drug or alcohol abusers who get cleaned up, success builds on success.
Those who successfully complete treatment programs do better the longer they manage to stay clean, a study cited by the Georgia Council on Substance Abuse found. About 4 million people went into treatment for drug or alcohol addiction in 2013, the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reports.
Two-thirds of those who manage to stay sober for one to three years will make it another year. Of those who make it five years, 86 percent make it another year.
Some of those stories of struggle and success are featured in “The Recovery Diaries,” a new short film produced by the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange.
But a life clean and sober can be harder to navigate — especially if his or her background includes an appearance before a judge.
“If I were just jumping into the workforce, I may not want my employer to know that I’m in recovery,” says Neil Campbell, executive director of the Georgia Council on Substance Abuse, in the film.
“We’ve criminalized addiction in this country to a point where an employer may hesitate to hire someone if they know they’ve had trouble in the past,” she says. “I think all of those things keep people from the treatment door.”
[For more of this story, written by Matt Smith, go to http://jjie.org/the-recovery-d...r-punishment/108661/]
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