What is Recovery Capital?

Recovery capital is an addiction treatment concept developed and introduced by Robert Granfield and William Cloud in 1999. Researcher William White precisely defines the concept as:

“…the breadth and depth of internal and external resources that can be drawn on to initiate and sustain recovery from severe alcohol or drug problems.”

Recovery capital takes into account every facet of an individual’s life that can either support or obstruct their recovery.

It is a systemized way to address the degree and quality of the forces in one’s life to help them enter and sustain recovery.

Think of it in economic terms – someone’s recovery capital is the sum of all the internal and external resources available to them to sustain recovery.

For example, if someone has health insurance and access to transportation, those are two resources that can contribute to recovery, and thus contribute to that individual’s recovery capital.

In simple terms, the system is designed to uncover someone’s motivations to stay clean and triggers that do the opposite, and then tracking them for better performance or handling of those factors.

In true standardized fashion, the recovery capital system is broken down into three sections:

1. Personal Recovery Capital

Granfield and Cloud considered this section as an individual’s “physical and human” capital.

When they say “physical,” they mean the resources available to an individual to sustain our physical necessities, such as:

• Physical health

• Health insurance

• Financial assets

• Shelter, food, clothing

• Access to transportation

  
  

Human capital describes the more intangible aspects of ourselves, like one’s:

• Values and knowledge

• Educational/Vocational skills

• Sense of meaning and/or purpose in life

• Interpersonal skills

• Perception of past, present, or future

• Capacity for problem-solving

• The Three S’s:

  • Self-Awareness

  • Self-Esteem

  • Self Efficacy (self-confidence in managing high-risk situations)

2. Family/Social Recovery Capital

This one is all about relationships.

Specifically the intimate, familial, and social relationships that are supportive of an individual’s recovery.

The quality of these relational resources depends on:

The willingness of intimate partners and loved ones to participate in treatment

The presence of recovering individual(s) within one’s family and social network

Access to sober outlets for activities and companionship based in sobriety

Connections to institutions (schools, workplaces, churches, other community organizations)

3. Community Recovery Capital

These resources consist of the external forces in one’s environment that can support their recovery.

This section has to do with the attitudes, policies, and resources related to addiction and recovery in one’s community.

Ideally, all three aspects consider drug and alcohol problems with compassion and actively promote their resolution.

For example, community recovery capital includes:

• Organized attempts to fight against addiction and recovery-related stigmas

• Access to local recovery institutions (recovery centers/homes/schools/industries, ministries/churches, treatment alumni programs)

• Access to a full continuum of addiction treatment

• Active and diverse recovery role models in the community

• Access to diverse mutual aid resources

• Sustained recovery support and early re-intervention programs (treatment programs, employee assistance programs, drug courts, community-organized programs)

• Access to cultural pathways (faith-based and otherwise) to recovery that resonate with particular individuals or families