Researchers at the Harvard medical school have recently shed some light on what it takes to have a successful recovery, and it might not be what you’d think. In what researchers are calling the ‘longest investigation to date,’ 268 Harvard graduates and 456 poor, inner-city men were tracked from adolescence to age 60-70 years of age. And the study found that the poor, inner-city men were twice as likely as the Harvard men to remain in recovery. By age 60, 59 percent of the Harvard men still abused alcohol, while only 28 percent of the inner-city men did. (Harvard University Gazette)
One of the main issues the study addressed is that it was next to impossible for the men who abused alcohol to at any point return to social drinking without relapsing. This reinforces the understanding that in order to have and enjoy a successful recovery, one must abstain from any use of drugs or alcohol.
