Effects of Interventions On Relapse To Narcotics Addiction

Event-history analysis was applied to the life history data of narcotics addicts to specify the concurrent, postintervention, and durational effects of social interventions on relapse to narcot ics addiction. Data were based on two face-to-face interviews conducted in 1974/1975 and 1985/1986 to continue follow-up investigations of 581 male narcotics addicts who were admitted to the California Civil Addict Program from 1962 to 1964. A separate hazard rate model was applied to data collected at each interview to reflect the respective stages of addiction careers In the first model, both methadone maintenance (MM) and legal supervision (LS) showed a concurrent effect of postponing relapse to addiction, and the effect of MM was stronger than LS. The second model indicated a higher relapse risk during the year after MM termination (relative to those that had not been on MM) and a positive relation between the length of time on MM and subsequent relapse. The results suggest either that those long-term narcotics addicts who cannot remain abstinent without MM need to be maintained on MM indefinitely or that treatment programs should apply intensive relapse prevention strategies during and after methadone maintenance intervention.