Recovery: old wine, flavor of the month or new organizing paradigm?

Recovery is emerging as an influential but ill-defined organizing concept for addiction treatment and the larger field of behavioral health care. The reification of the concept of recovery is discounted by some as nothing new ("We're already recovery oriented."), an ephemeral fad lacking substance and import ("This is old wine in a new wineskin."), or as hopelessly impractical ("Nobody will pay for it."). This essay uses historical analysis and treatment system performance data to argue that recovery is a revolutionary concept. Policymakers who are embracing this concept via the vision of a recovery-oriented system of care are, in spite of innumerable obstacles, radically altering the present design of addiction treatment.