Staff Specialist Jasmine Rennie proposed a comment about Recovery Month, which for this year has as its theme, Join the Voices for Recovery: Invest in Health, Home, Purpose, and Community.   The event is featured on the main ASAM.org site, as well as directly at: https://www.recoverymonth.gov/ .  A more comprehensive discussion of the recovery movement may be found within the site at https://recoverymonth.gov/about, from which much of this is drawn.   Be forewarned that the history and the initiatives are government-centric, and so much of the grassroots – and older  - “recovery movement” is not addressed, whether AA, Oxford Groups, Temperance Movement, etc.   For a more comprehensive depiction of the history of addiction treatment, please sample William L. White’s website  [http://www.williamwhitepapers.com/ ], or his now-classic text, Slaying the Dragon.

Beginning in 1989 as Treatment Works! Month, Recovery Month began by focusing on substance use treatment professionals. In 1998, it became National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month, coming to include the stories and accomplishments of those themselves in recovery. In 2011 it was retitled National Recovery Month (aka Recovery Month), effectively acknowledging all mental/behavioral health disorders; and philosophically allying recovery paths of all stripes, a parity different from that for reimbursement but equally important.

At the 20 year mark, the project published a timeline describing the chronology of treatment events, with these excerpted milestones emphasized, among others.  They are inserted verbatim.

“1988 The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) was established.
1989 Warning labels were added on alcoholic beverages.
1989 The first drug court was established.
1990 The Americans with Disabilities Act was passed.
1990 The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Fighting Back program funded 15 communities in 11 states to combat alcohol and illicit drug-related programs.
1990 Addiction medicine became a specialty, and a representative of the field was admitted to the AMA House of Delegates as a voting member.
1992 The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) was established by Congress, which also created the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT), Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS), and Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP). The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) became part of the National Institutes of Health.
1994 The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act was signed by President Clinton and included the Drunk Driving Child Protection Act of 1994.
1994 The first Administrator of SAMHSA was appointed by President Clinton.
1996 In the political sphere, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) passed, which increased the confidentiality of patient records related to alcohol and drug abuse.
1996 The Federal Crime Bill provided start-up funding to drug courts.
1998 The United States Congress created the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign to prevent and reduce youth drug use. The Campaign is the nation’s largest anti-drug media campaign and is generally thought to be the single largest source of drug-prevention messaging directed to teens.

1998 SAMHSA/CSAT began Recovery Community Support Programs (RCSPs).
1999 The Supreme Court decided in the Olmstead decision that states cannot require people with disabilities to remain inappropriately institutionalized so they can receive health care services.
2000 The Drug Addiction Treatment Act of 2000 (DATA) was passed.
2000 Demand Treatment!, a project funded primarily by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, was launched. The project was a national initiative to expand access to quality alcohol and drug treatment.
2000 The House of Representatives issued a Concurrent Resolution supporting the goals of Recovery Month.
2001 Oversight and regulation of methadone programs was transferred to SAMHSA from the FDA.
2002 The Indian Alcohol and Substance Abuse Program (IASAP) was developed by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance to assist tribal jurisdictions in improving their criminal justice systems and reducing substance abuse.
2002 The Recovery Community Support Programs changed its name to the Recovery Community Services Program (RCSP).
2003 President Bush’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health convened and published a report.
2004 SAMHSA/CSAT’s Access to Recovery grant program was founded.
2004 SAMHSA/CSAT began the Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) grant program. In addition, SAMHSA launched the State Incentive Grant Program to build prevention capacity at the state and community levels.
2005 The National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Act was signed by President Bush.
2008 The first-ever recovery/wellness rooms were introduced at national political conventions.
2008 The Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act passed in Congress and was signed by President Bush. It provided equal coverage of mental health and addiction treatment compared with traditional medical coverage.
2009 SAMHSA is delegated the authority to administer grants to states to implement prescription drug monitoring programs.”

While not yet updated for the intervening nine years, the timeline would certainly have later included such steps as 1) the approval of addiction medicine as a specialty (2017-2018), by both the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) and the American College of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME); and 2) the founding of Faces & Voices of Recovery(2001).  The latter may have as much or more symbolic value than any of the foregoing exactly because it acquiesces in the recovering population’s status as a stakeholder in treatment availability and effectiveness. 

- W. Haning, MD