Treatment Recovery Odds
The dominant addiction treatment model is known as the Minnesota Model. It was developed in Minnesota in the 1950s. ~75-80% of us who undergo addiction treatment go through this form of treatment. The format is either a standard 28 day inpatient stay and a treatment facility, or outpatient treatment, where people stay at home, work and usually attend sessions in the evenings for three or four hours, three to five days a week.
The Minnesota Model uses cognitive behavioral modification techniques, primarily 12 step, with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and motivational enhancement training (MET). Once discharged from treatment, we're instructed to immerse ourselves in 12 step involvement - Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, etc. We're told to find a homegroup, get a sponsor, and work the steps.
12 step modalities can be very effective, AA does work, but only if we immerse ourselves into those programs. It is kind of like the gym, we know that the gym works, but it doesn't work if you don't use the gym. 90% of people who sign up for a gym membership stop going after a few months and fall back into old habits of poor diet and lack of activity. We addicts are no different. Life starts to get in the way when treatment ends. We're pulled in lots of different directions that pull us back into deeply habituated routines, which include our using habits and behaviors.
The Minnesota Model, but itself isn't very effective. It is a vital and critical starting place for those who can utilize, but the evidence is overwhelming. We need more. Specifically, we need not just cognitive therapy modalities, we have to rewire and restore mid-brain neural pathways that dominant our behavioral choice paradigms in active use addiction.
This is what makes HIMS-style addiction recovery so effective, it utilizes operant conditioning treatment therapies to change the mid-brain and eventually eliminate craving in nearly all cases. But it takes time, we know from the research that it takes between two to five years of a structured operant conditioning and cognitive reprogramming paradigm to get with severe substance use disorder to long-term, self-sustaining, abstinent remission.
HIMS provides that structure, that is why 85-90% of people who go through HIMS programs get and stay clean and sober after just one round of treatment. In contrast, only ~15-20% of us who go through standard Minnesota Model treatment get and stay clean and sober.
We built an algorithmic model, based on the studies in the recovery science literature. If you'd like our white paper detailing the studies and their findings, and the basis for our model, email us at help@vivonrecovery.com.
Below you will find a short YouTube video of the model that contrasts the odds of getting and staying clean and sober going through addiction treatment as usual, and under a HIMS-style system of recovery.
