Recovery Allies: How to Support Addiction Recovery and Build Recovery-Friendly Communities

For readers of The Least of Us and In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts--a practical, hopeful, and research-based guide for supporting loved ones through addiction and recovery.

    This isn’t a book about addiction--it’s a book about recovery. Written for every loved one, community member, and recovery professional who wants to know “how do I help?,” Recovery Allies offers real-world solutions, evidence-based strategies, and, above all, hope for the 23 million Americans living in recovery from substance use disorder.
    Other books describe how to treat addiction or offer stories of recovery and redemption, but this is the first to comprehensively approach our addiction crisis from a community perspective. You’ll learn about:

Reducing the shame and stigma that can prevent folks in recovery from asking for help

The tools essential to addressing our addiction epidemic

How to apply public health strategies across all community sectors, from healthcare and law enforcement to faith organizations and education

The critical role of relationships and community support in achieving sobriety and maintaining recovery

Relapse prevention, harm reduction, and peer support

    Recovery Allies is structured around the key pillars of recovery as identified by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA): home, health, purpose, and community. It shows you a different way to think about addiction in our country--and what you can do to help in all your spheres of influence.
    Most adults with substance use disorder don’t receive specialized treatment like counseling, medication, or rehab. Instead, the recovery journey starts in their communities, among family and friends--here and now, with their recovery allies.

ALISON JONES WEBB, MA, MPH has worked in public health community outreach, grassroots organizing, substance use and overdose prevention, and community-based recovery supports for over 20 years. Webb has advocated for programs and policies based on science and research, lifting up the voices of people who use drugs and alcohol and people in recovery. Webb is currently the President of the Board of Directors of the Maine Association of Recovery Residences. Webb is a founding member of Maine’s first chapter of Young People in Recovery, a national advocacy organization that promotes different pathways to recovery and the development of recovery ready communities. She also assisted in the development of the University of Southern Maine’s Collegiate Recovery Program. This is her first book.