How long does it take for successful abstinence from substance use?
Rafaela Fontes, research scientist at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech University, takes a look.
Rafaela Fontes is a research scientist in the Addiction Recovery Research Center at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC. Her work focuses on decision-making processes in individuals with substance use disorders (SUD), using models of choice to inform more effective treatments. She also investigates factors influencing recovery, aiming to identify diverse pathways that lead to successful outcomes across different substances.
She and her colleagues from the institute drew from the International Quit & Recovery for their recent research on substance use cessation.
Persistence with Abstinence from Substance Use
Relapse is common when someone is trying to quit an addiction. And even though we know addiction is a chronic condition, we treat it as an acute disorder.
My colleagues and I wanted to answer this question: How many quit attempts are needed for successful abstinence? We also wanted to know if this number was different depending on the substance someone is trying to quit.
To find out, we recruited participants from the International Quit & Recovery Registry, a tool created by the late Dr. Warren Bickel to better understand success in overcoming addiction. We drew our findings from 344 people who reported abstinence from at least one substance. Their responses showed that some substances do require more attempts, and are harder to quit.
Opioids and pain medication required significantly more attempts than all other substances — with an estimated mean around 6 attempts. Notably, substances with a higher number of quit attempts are also the ones that can bring on severe physical withdrawal symptoms, like pain, nausea, and anxiety.
Our results also showed that it took more attempts for people with a more severe or longer history of substance use to achieve abstinence. That means that early intervention is better. For those on the severe end of the spectrum, more intense or a combination of interventions might be needed.
Importantly, these numbers might not be final for every participant, as we know that relapse is common. In our sample, the average time in abstinence was more than seven years across substances.
We hope these findings help inform treatment by demonstrating that each substance is associated with unique challenges. We also hope this helps people who are going through recovery. If they know failure is part of the process, they might be encouraged to stay the course, realizing they’ll get there eventually.
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