New Johns Hopkins research suggests that providing housing contingent on drug abstinence to inner-city opioid abusers leaving a detoxification program significantly increases their chances of remaining drug-free six months later. Relapse rates for people leaving detox range from 65 to 80 percent one month after discharge, according to a report by the researchers published in the journal Addiction. But, they say, those provided drug-free recovery housing coupled with an intensive day-treatment program may be up to 10 times more likely to stay abstinent than those released from detox with minimal assistance. Even recovery housing alone, without therapy, was nearly five times as likely to keep people from returning to heroin, OxyContin and other opioids. "Our research shows that providing recovery housing to opioid dependent people, with or without additional formalized treatment, results in much higher abstinence rates than detoxification alone," says study researcher Michelle Tuten, M.S.W., an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "These are people with a long history of failed treatment attempts and they need something more intensive than just a short stay in detox." Tuten and her colleagues randomly assigned 243 opioid-dependent people in Baltimore who completed a three- to 14-day detox program to one of three groups: one whose members were provided recovery housing, paid for by the study for three months if the participant remained abstinent; a second whose members were provided recovery housing and also enrolled in a day-treatment program; and a third whose participants got information and referrals to community-based aftercare programs but who were not provided treatment. None of the 243 received opioid replacement medications such as methadone or buprenorphine. For the groups in housing, the costs were covered for up to 90 days. Those in the day-treatment arm were expected to attend the program daily for the first three weeks, four days a week in weeks four through 12 and twice a week in the final 12 weeks of the 26-week program. Researchers assessed the participants' progress at one, three and six months.
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