Trajectories, Transitions and Turning Points: Sports, Substance Misuse and Desistance.

Despite well-established health benefits of physical exercise (Department of Health 2004; 2010; Pang et al., 2008), sport has played relatively little part in adult alcohol and drug treatment programmes. Limited research examines the contribution sporting programmes may make to people in their recovery from addiction. However, natural recovery research (overcoming addiction without formal treatment) identifies that meaningful activities are a key part of resolving alcohol and drug problems. At six-month intervals, this study conducted three individual, in-depth interviews with 19 male adults with substance misuse problems. They were engaging regularly on Second Chance, a sports programme for socially excluded groups, as part of their recovery from addiction. The study identified two patterns of behaviour. One group were desisting. In addition to Second Chance they had occupations which provided them with networks of support, and their narratives reflected hope and self-efficacy. The second group had few occupations, low self-efficacy, and high levels of anxiety, and their time was spent with other similarly situated people. Employing a developmental, life course theory of informal social controls (Laub and Sampson 2003), this study prospectively examined desistance from substance misuse in the context of Second Chance. The theory suggests that desistance and persistence from crime can be meaningfully understood by examining individuals’ routine activities, informal social controls and agency. Turning points are a key concept in life course theories, defined as change in the long term pathway which was initiated at an earlier point in time (Elder 1998). This study suggested that Second Chance was a “window of opportunity for change” (Groshkova and Best 2011:33), within which a turning point was being experienced by some of the interviewees. The turning point was an identity transformation, and this was facilitated through a confluence of meaningful routine activities, informal social controls, and, personal agency

A systematic review of the efficacy of alcohol interventions for incarcerated people

Aim: The aim of this current study was to systematically review the literature on brief alcohol interventions for incarcerated individuals to ascertain the efficacy or effectiveness in making changes to either consumption of alcohol or other social outcomes. Short summary: Levels of risky drinking and dependency are high amongst incarcerated individuals. Eleven studies from nine articles were included in the systematic review. Six of the studies included brief intervention and three extended interventions. Interventions have the potential to positively impact on risky drinking. More studies are needed in this setting. Introduction: It has been shown that around three times as many incarcerated individuals are risky drinkers and alcohol dependency is ten times higher than in the general population. Methods: Systematic review of randomised controlled trials or matched group trials of the efficacy of psychosocial alcohol interventions for incarcerated individuals: we searched seven databases, with no restrictions on language, year or location from inception through to August 2017. The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme tool was used to assess the quality of included studies. The Template for Intervention Description and Replication checklist was used to ascertain intervention descriptions. Results: Nine studies from 11 papers were included in the analysis. Six of the studies included brief interventions and three extended interventions. Every study used a different measure of alcohol consumption. Three of the studies that looked at brief interventions and all of the three extended intervention studies found significant reductions in relation to alcohol outcomes. Conclusions: Results show that interventions in the prison setting have the potential to positively impact on alcohol use; however, because of small numbers and the use of different outcome measures we could not conduct a meta-analysis or generalise findings. Future studies are needed to standardise approaches to ensure greater rigour and efficacy