The road to recovery for people with substance use disorder (SUD) is often difficult and uneven. Advocates for people with SUD have long championed expanding community support services, which are a key element of recovery, alongside greater access to addiction treatment, mental health care, and other clinical services. 

Over the last 20 years, advocacy groups and people in recovery began opening recovery community centers (RCCs) around the country, providing hopeful and healing environments where people with lived experience of addiction serve as role models. There are now approximately 300 RCCs nationwide.

The Connecticut Community of Addiction Recovery (CCAR) is an RCC that helps people age 18 and older with SUD achieve and sustain recovery through community-based non-clinical social support programs, volunteer opportunities, and referrals to detox, treatment, housing, employment, among other vital resources.

This profile features CCAR as part of the Better Care Playbook’s ongoing series, In the Field: Spotlight on Complex Care Interventions, that highlights how organizations are implementing evidence-based and promising innovations to improve care for people with complex health and social needs.

*Author Harris Meyer is a freelance journalist who has been writing about health care policy and delivery since 1986.