Recovery Capital and Quality of Life: Recovery as an Aide to Improving Well-Being and Quality of Life

The purpose of this chapter is to explore how recovery impacts a person’s sense of well-being and quality of life encompassing a range of life domains. What this chapter will show is that the process of recovery extends beyond the management of a substance use disorder to create gains in multiple areas of a person’s life. The ripple effect of recovery transforms areas relating to physical, mental, and emotional health, a sense of fulfilment and happiness, engagement in meaningful activities, and a person’s social connections and networks. These in turn promote and sustain recovery creating a mutually beneficial cycle of reinforcement and positive change that centres on the individual but ripples out to positively affect peers, family, neighbours, and the community.