The ways we intervene in curbing addiction to substances has shifted from the medical era, focusing on acute care, to a comprehensive chronic care model. People need long-term support to stay off substances, as well as immediate help to stop using them.
But in South Africa there is silence on alternative and innovative ways people recover. The country has an over-reliance on the medical model. This is despite an acknowledgement that addiction as a disease has physiological effects that have an impact on other areas of functioning. This calls for the adoption of a bio-psycho-social approach which proposes that illness and disease conditions are not only biological but have that they have psychological and social dimensions. Managing addiction requires taking account of all these factors.
