Recovered Addicts Working in the Addiction Field: How do Substance Abuse Treatment Agencies Work with Substance Abuse Relapse among Addiction Counsellors who are in Recovery?

The potential for relapse among recovered counsellors if one accepts that substance abuse is a chronic illness, which often entails relapse, is a topic that has been neglected by the scientific community. The lack of research in this area needs to be addressed especially when bearing in mind the possible unresolved issues motivating some “ex-addicts” seeking employment in the field. Given that relapse among recovered counsellors is not a rare phenomena, the research posed certain questions with regards to how agencies work with employees who have had a substance abuse relapse. Using a case study design, the authors reviewed two diverse urban substance abuse treatment agencies with very distinctively different ways of working with recovered counsellors who have relapsed.

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