An internet-acquired recovery sample: Initial findings from the International Quit & Recovery Registry

Hello Recovery Heroes! Check out this abstract from a poster presented at a recent conference about all of you!

Authors: Arlington G. Wilson, Chris Franck, Mikhail N. Koffarnus, Robert Reese, Kaitlyn D. Bixel, Warren K. Bickel

Journal: Drug & Alcohol Dependence

Aims: Recovery is an important process in the addiction life-cycle. As such, recovery has been previously studied using either (1) longitudinal designs, or (2) large generally cross-sectional samples. Both approaches may incur large financial and labor burdens. However, internet-based methods have the potential to integrate these approaches while minimizing the challenges of these other methods. Here, we report the initial findings from The International Quit and Recovery Registry, which is a tool we are using to characterize formally addicted individuals using these methods.

Methods: To register, an individual had to submit an active and unregistered email address to the website (https://members.quitandrecovery.org/) and click on a link that was emailed to the individual so that they could fill out a registration questionnaire. Respondents who (1) did not report a primary addiction or (2) were less than 18 years old at the time of registration were excluded from data analyses.

Results: 3063 individuals registered (53.7% female) with an average age of 47.8 (SD = 12.2). The median number of years in recovery is 5.1 years (with an IQR of 11.8 years), and 35% of this sample report being in recovery for three years or less. The most common primary addiction reported is alcoholism (51.7%), and the broadly classified “inpatient therapy” (54% of 2536 respondents) is reported as the most effective treatment method. 96% of registrants report having at least one secondary addiction.

Conclusions: This registry allowed for the study of a large and diverse sample of individuals in either initial or long-term recovery. Future follow-up studies will determine whether longitudinal study is possible through this method, as well as characterize the recovery phenotype.

Financial support: NIDA grants R01DA024080, R01DA030241, R01DA034755 R01DA022386 NIAAA grant R01AA021529.