National Recovery Month Offers Opportunity to Educate, Inspire

Each September for the past 34 years, we have paused to acknowledge and support National Recovery Month. This is a special time to celebrate all those who are recovering from a substance use or mental health condition. It also is a time to educate our friends and colleagues about these conditions, about the potential for recovery, and about the hope that it can instill.

The permanent theme of National Recovery Month is “Recovery is for Everyone. Every Person. Every Family. Every Community.” We seek a world in which no one with a behavioral health condition is left behind for any reason—poverty, rurality, gender, race, beliefs, or any other factor. Everyone can and should recover. This goal must become a reality.

In the centuries-long history of concern with behavioral health conditions, recovery is very new. A half century ago, it was commonly believed that behavioral health conditions are permanent, and that life-long care is required. Over the intervening 50 years, the consumer movement has worked tirelessly to change the dialogue from exclusion, force, and permanent treatment to inclusion, support, and self-directed life—in other words, from despair to hope and recovery.

Through these heroic efforts, recovery was brought to us via the direct experiences of those engaged in their own personal recovery efforts from mental health or substance use conditions. The recovery process did not come through the work of professional practitioners or researchers. It came directly from primary consumers. Ultimately, recovery became formalized at the federal level in the 2003 Report of the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health.

Since that time, we also have learned much about the key role that community life determinants, such as housing, work, and social support, play in causing personal trauma and subsequent behavioral health conditions. The vast majority of those with behavioral health conditions have experienced such traumas. The recovery process occurs as people regain their voices and rebuild their personal support networks in the community.

Finally, we now are just beginning to understand that recovery must not only involve the efforts of a solitary individual, but also must include the efforts of family members and the entire community itself. Families and communities can become self-empowered to offer the support necessary to promote personal wellbeing and recovery of those with behavioral health conditions. Much work currently is underway to understand the roles that our communities can play in the recovery process.

We are delighted to note the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) recently created a new Office of Recovery. This office can formalize and promote the many recovery activities already underway within the agency. It also can serve as a focal point for leadership on recovery in the field. Finally, this office also can work with other agency programs to ensure they are guided by and incorporate the principles of recovery.  

We all know a family member, a friend, a colleague, or even a neighbor down the street who is experiencing a behavioral health condition.  National Recovery Month reminds us that it is essential for us to reach out to that person, to offer needed support, and to help that person access appropriate care. In each of these steps, it is especially important to offer hope for a better future. That is what recovery really means.

Ron Manderscheid, PhD, is the former president and CEO of NACBHDD and NARMH, as well as an adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the USC School of Social Work.

The views expressed in Perspectives are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Behavioral Healthcare Executive, the Psychiatry & Behavioral Health Learning Network, or other Network authors. Perspectives entries are not medical advice.