New Online Recovery Communities are the Future of Treatment With so many new habits appearing in society, such as video and gaming addiction, internet and social media addiction, as well as all the addictions that have been around for ever, new types of treatment must be found to save the many ever younger addicts.
Fortunately there are many offline organizations available to help in recovery, but not everyone who's addicted can get to those organizations.
For some people with special needs like the deaf, the visually impaired and blind, the disabled, the homebound and for geographically isolated alcoholics/addicts, "cyberspace" offers all of these the chance of forming a Recovery Community.
Now all of these don't sound like much when you just read it off in a list like that, but if you add up the potential numbers of them altogether, we're talking about between 1 and 2 million alcoholics alone. That's about as many people as are currently in the membership of the entire North American AA, somewhere in that range. So there are a lot of people that could be served by an Online Recovery Community, even more than there are now.
In cyberspace we see a good number of alcoholics/addicts looking for help for the first time. I believe we’ll see them in ever-increasing numbers. Online recovery groups can help those who are trying to recover from alcoholism, drug addiction, gammbling addiction and porn addiction, to Internet, email, even Facebook and Twitter addiction. These web-based groups make it easier for members to apply recovery skills, locate more support resources, and learn to live without their debilitating substance.
Understand no two online recovery groups are alike. There is an enormous diversity among groups reflecting unique features of the particular group and the individuals who constitute it. There is a tremendous variation of emphasis, emotional tone, meeting philosophy, readings and ritual, and informal group norms from one group to another.
The new online recovery communities now offer online websites where fellow recovering addicts can interact. They accomplish this by providing a variety of interactive recovery tools such as Blogs, social media, chat rooms, message forums and Instant Messaging. Participants can even attend chaired online meetings.
Written By: Tom Retterbush
