STAGE 5. Defining the action plan

What steps should be completed?

Step 1: Specify intervention actions

SELF-HELP INTERVENTIONS

Self-help groups are organisations made up of former drug users who try to help other drug users to give up drugs and improve their lifestyle, their prosocial behaviour and family life. They include two large groups:

• Those acting autonomously and independently of treatment service professionals (Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, etc.) that usually have religious or spiritual roots and propose pseudo-therapeutic forms of intervention.
• Those aimed at establishing close collaboration with treatment services professionals (of different denominations: clubs of alcoholics, associations of rehabilitated alcoholics, etc.).  

Self-help groups are considered a useful tool, to the extent that they can complement and extend the effects of professional treatment. Therefore, many drug treatment programmes encourage patients to participate in a self-help group during and after formal treatment. Their work is particularly relevant in promoting access to treatment for drug-dependent people, and during recovery, as they offer an additional level of community support that improves adherence to treatment and helps to achieve and maintain abstinence and other healthy lifestyles.¹

 

References:

1 National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). (2010). Principles of drug addiction treatment: a research-based guide. Washington: National Institute on Drug Abuse.