The day-level effects of recovery community center attendance on indicators of recovery wellbeing and risk

Background

Recovery community centers (RCCs) are a relatively new resource in the recovery support landscape aimed at building their members' recovery capital. In recent years, interest in the value of RCCs has grown, however, no studies have used within-person methods to consider how RCCs may impact the day-to-day lives of their attendees. Using within-person data drawn from members of RCCs, this study examined how visiting RCCs was associated with several same-day indicators of recovery wellbeing and risk: daily sense of meaningfulness, recovery identity, negative affect, and positive affect.

Methods

Participants were 94 visitors of six RCCs in western Pennsylvania. Daily diary methods collected 10 nightly reports of daily RCC attendance and end-of-day meaningfulness, recovery identity, negative affect, and positive affect. Multilevel modeling accounted for nesting in the intensive longitudinal data. In independent models, the study regressed meaningfulness, recovery identity, negative affect, and positive affect onto day- and person-level RCC attendance.

Results

Within-person associations between RCC attendance and meaningfulness (b = 6.96, SE = 1.66, p < .001), recovery identity (b = 4.75, SE = 1.08, p < .001), and PA (b = 3.82, SE = 1.45, p < .01) were significant, although NA was not (b = −2.41, SE = 1.34, n.s.). All day- by person-level RCC attendance interactions (in preliminary models) and between-person associations were non-significant across recovery outcomes.

Conclusions

The results indicated that on days participants visited RCCs, they reported significantly higher levels of meaningfulness, recovery identity, and positive affect, although negative affect levels did not significantly differ. Also, those who attended RCCs more frequently did not generally report different levels of recovery wellbeing and risk. Taken together, results suggest visiting RCCs works on a daily basis to support interpersonal processes related to positive recovery outcomes. That RCC visits do not appear to reduce negative affect suggests that additional programs may be needed to address negative affect. The within-person design provided insight into the dynamic processes that contribute to the intrapersonal states that support recovery and a practical approach to examining whether and how RCCs might support recovery. By using individuals as their own controls, the study design provided strong counterfactual inference.