01/20/2026
Important Paper on an Operational Definition of Recovery Published by Dr John Kelly and William Stauffer
Dr John Kelly and William Stauffer have published an important journal article on moving towards a measurable definition of recovery. Utility or futility? Toward an operational definition of addiction ‘recovery’ was published in December 2025 in Addiction Research & Theory. It is a peer-reviewed international journal that publishes interdisciplinary scholarship on the theoretical, conceptual, and methodological foundations of addiction science. It emphasizes critical analysis, theory development, and integrative perspectives that advance understanding of substance use, behavioral addictions, and recovery across clinical, social, and policy domains.
Kelly and Stauffer argue that addiction science has relied on inconsistent, imprecise, and often ideologically influenced definitions of “recovery,” which has constrained scientific progress and limited clinical and policy relevance. The article documents how recovery has been variously defined as abstinence, treatment completion, symptom reduction, or psychosocial functioning, producing conceptual ambiguity and preventing meaningful comparison across studies. Drawing on models from other chronic health conditions, the authors critique binary and static conceptions of recovery and show how poorly specified recovery constructs weaken outcome measurement, distort policy evaluations, and undermine system accountability.
The authors propose an operational, empirically grounded framework for defining recovery that emphasizes sustained remission, functional improvement, and durability over time. Rather than treating recovery as a single end-state, the framework conceptualizes it as a dynamic process that can be measured using explicit thresholds across multiple domains, including substance use, health, and functioning, and evaluated over clinically meaningful time horizons. Kelly and Stauffer contend that adopting such an operational definition would strengthen research coherence, enable valid comparisons across interventions, and better align scientific measurement with the lived experiences of individuals with substance use disorders, shifting the field from rhetorical debate toward testable, policy-relevant science.
Dr. John F. Kelly is an American psychologist and leading addiction researcher who serves as the Elizabeth R. Spallin Professor of Psychiatry in the Field of Addiction Medicine at Harvard Medical School and is the founder and director of the Recovery Research Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed scientific articles on addiction and recovery and has served as a consultant to major U.S. federal agencies as well as the World Health Organization and the United Nations.
William Stauffer is the Executive Director of PRO-A with nearly 40 years of practice experience. He is a nationally recognized writer focused on advancing recovery-oriented processes and policy-relevant approaches to substance use disorder recovery. He was the 2019 recipient of the American Honors Recovery - Recovery Advocacy Award, he has testified twice in front of the US Senate on matters related to recovery and is an adjunct Professor at Misericordia University.
Journal Article Utility or futility? Toward an operational definition of addiction ‘recovery’ Link -
The ‘recovery’ construct has received growing scrutiny over the past 20 years as individuals and organizations have tried to define what ‘recovery’ is, or should contain, as something distinct from...