A great deal has been written in academic and popular forms about recovery from substance use. Far less has been written about long-term recovery. This long-term perspective is important in that it explicitly recognises and respects the long-term nature of the struggles many people with substance-use issues take on in pursuing, defining and realising their own recovery. This is a theme that runs throughout this edited collection, and we will hear powerful testimonies that illustrate those struggles. In this opening chapter we begin by introducing the concept of recovery, briefly addressing the history of the use of the term in the sector as well as some of the key definitional issues and debates. We move on to discussing the idea of long-term recovery, introducing our ideas about why a durational or time-based view of recovery might be both limiting for our understanding of recovery but also important for defending an ethic of care and valuing person-centred change. We explore the importance of the voices of those with lived experience, arguing that the value of many of the stories in this book is in how they link the particularities of people's lived experience of recovery with the systems and structures in which people live. In this respect, the breadth of the people and places covered in the collection is a key strength.

Introducing the concept of recovery

The use of alcohol or other drugs, hereafter ‘substances’, is documented throughout history. Gossop (2000, p 1) suggests ‘people have always used drugs to alter their states of consciousness’, and over the centuries, the joys and pitfalls of substance use have been explored and expressed in a range of forms including art, literature, social research and personal testimony. In a seminal text, Sadie Plant beautifully captures the complexities, ambiguities and ambivalences wrapped up in thinking about, researching and writing about substance use: