title: Consumers' Experiences in Dual Focus Mutual Aid for Co-occurring Substance Use and Mental Health Disorders.
abstract: Mutual aid fellowships have been shown to improve outcomes for those with co-occurring substance use and mental illness disorders. Processes associated with usefulness include helper therapy (the assumption of a helping role to foster commitment) and reciprocal learning (the sharing of problems and solutions among members). The present qualitative investigation used focus groups comprised a subset of participants in Double Trouble in Recovery (DTR), a 12-step mutual aid group for those with co-occurring disorders, to gather their subjective perceptions of the groups. Participants emphasized that in linking them to others with similar problems, the DTR groups played a vital emotional role in their lives and provided a needed venue for information sharing that might have been otherwise unavailable.
authors.affiliation: National Development and Research Institutes, New York, NY.
authors.forename: Harlan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Matusow
authors.forename: Honoria
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Guarino
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rosenblum
authors.forename: Howard
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Vogel
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Uttaro
authors.forename: Sadiqua
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Khabir
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rini
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Moore
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Magura
keywords: 12-step; DTR; Double Trouble in Recovery; co-occurring disorders; dual-diagnosis; focus groups; mutual-Aid