Faculty Bibliography

Increased opioid-related morbidity and mortality in the United States has triggered considerable professional, public, and political alarm and a wide array of community and clinical responses. The potential role of Narcotics Anonymous (NA) as a recovery support resource is rarely noted within recent media and professional reports addressing opioid addiction. In this brief review and commentary, the authors compare public and professional misconceptions about NA with the findings of available scientific studies of NA. The authors conclude that NA is an underutilized resource in contemporary responses to opioid addiction

Aims: We conducted a Stage Ia pilot to develop a new intervention, Mentorship for Addiction Problems (MAP), for individuals with substance use disorders in community treatment programs by pilot/feasibility testing, manual writing, training program development, and adherence/competence measure construction. We examined intervention and participant predictors of substance use outcomes. Methods: Ten Mentors participated for 6 months in a piloting of MAP until 30 Mentees received MAP for 12 weeks. Behavioral and biological measures were conducted at baseline, weekly, monthly, and termination. Aseries of bivariate regressions were conducted to determine whether any treatment process or participant variables were associated with substance use outcomes. Results: Intervention Predictors. Mentor group supervision attendance was predictive of Mentee percentage of days abstinent from drugs and alcohol for Mentee weeks in treatment, R² = .790, F(1, 8) = 30.13, p < .001, and predictive of Mentee percentage of days abstinent from drugs R² = .458, F(1, 8) = 6.76, p < .05. Mentee overall attendance was predictive of percentage of days of Mentee abstinence from alcohol, R² = .158, F(1, 28) = 5.27, p < .05 and percentage of days of Mentee abstinence from drugs and alcohol, R² = .228, F(1, 28) = 8.28, p < .05. Finally, Mentor overall attendance was predictive of Mentee percentage of days abstinent from drugs, R² = .462, F(1, 8) = 6.86, p < .05, and predictive of Mentee percentage of days abstinent from drugs and alcohol R² = .798, F(1, 8) = 31.50, p < .001. Participant Predictors. Similar analyses did not find any demographic, housing stability, substance abuse severity or prior substance and psychiatric treatment variables to be associated with outcome. Conclusions: MAP treatment process variables were associated with substance use outcomes