Mission and Premise

Mission

 

Our mission is to advance recovery from substance use disorder and addictive behavior. We offer recovery support services, education, and advocacy for social, cultural, and health care parity with other illnesses.

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Our focus is on peer support, because of its effectiveness, affordability, and sustainability. Our efforts are inclusive. We support a variety of recovery services by filling the gaps among existing programs as well as providing our own.

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We seek to foster an environment in which people with addictive illnesses are accepted, treated, and supported as any other patient, whether in a hospital, workplace, neighborhood, or home.

 

Premise

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Substance use disorder and other harmful addictive behaviors permeate our society in every neighborhood, in every community, and at every socio-economic level, causing immeasurable damage that affects us all.

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Progress in accepting the nature and the extent of this crisis has been made. Substance use disorder is increasingly understood to be a chronic condition, and recovery is finding its way into the mainstream of American life. 

 

While recovery-intensive events such as in- or out-patient treatment continue to play a critical initial role, and often help transition patients into Alcoholics Anonymous, Refuge Recovery, All Recovery, Narcotics Anonymous, and other recovery programs for the long term, treatment is, by its nature, time-limited.

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Recovery is a lifetime.

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Happily, recovery can be the basis for a very good lifetime, and a key component in successful recovery is peer support. Peer support is effective, and ultimately necessary for long-term recovery. Peer support is affordable, and peer support is sustainable.

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The Second Wind Foundation seeks to develop, improve and expand the availability of programs that advance recovery by making use of the unique experience of people who are in recovery themselves, in cooperation with a variety of recovery programs, as well as corrections, medical, and social services professionals.

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