Social Support Intervention for Addiction Recovery (LDART)

The purpose of this research study is to determine whether using a web-based intervention is feasible, acceptable, and helpful for people who engage in hazardous alcohol use and want to cut down or quit.

This pilot study will determine the feasibility and acceptability of a novel online social support intervention (Let's Do Addiction Recovery Together!, abbreviated as LDART) that uses pre-recorded videos created by members of recovery support services to help individuals in early recovery from hazardous alcohol use sustain motivation during recovery and introduce them to freely available recovery support services in the community. The investigators will recruit participants to use the web-based intervention daily for a month; they will also fill in questionnaires about their substance use and engagement with recovery support services at the beginning and end of the study to determine preliminary efficacy.

LDART is a newly developed web-based social support intervention that can be accessed by smartphone or computer. Each night, the participant sets a recovery goal for the next day (e.g., drink less than usual, go to a support group meeting). The next night, they log on to LDART to indicate whether they reached their goal for the day. Depending on their response, they will be shown either a celebratory or encouraging message from someone in the addiction recovery community, along with specific information on that person's recovery organization.

Feasibility of recruitment is measured as the number of adults who consent to study participation divided by the number of months the trial recruits for.

Retention rate is calculated as the number of participants who complete the study divided by the number of participants who consented to participating in the study.

Acceptability is calculated as the number of nights participants login to LDART within the 28-day window.

Acceptability is measured with a 9-item self-report acceptability assessment questionnaire. This comprises questions regarding the motivational and supportive properties of the content, perceptions on the frequency of engaging with the intervention, and whether they enjoyed using the intervention. Each question is rated on a 5-point Likert scale, where higher values indicate greater acceptability. There will also be two open-ended questions for participants to indicate what they liked and did not like about the intervention and ways to improve it.

Timeline Follow Back is a validated, self-reported instrument that provides specific dates for alcohol use in the past 28 days, and the number of standard drinks consumed on each drinking day. Percent Drinking Days is calculated as the number of days in the 28-day window in which one or more standard drinks is consumed for two consecutive windows.

Percent Heavy Drinking Days is calculated from the Timeline Follow Back instrument as the number of days in the 28-day window in which four/five or more standard drinks is consumed for women/men for two consecutive windows.

The Timeline Follow Back instrument will be used to quantify number of hours spent engaging in recovery support services (e.g., being at a recovery community center, attending a support group meeting) each day in the past 28-day time window for two consecutive windows.

World Health Organization Quality of Life - Brief Version (WHOQOL-BREF) is a 26-item questionnaire with four domains (score range in parentheses): physical health (7-35), psychological health (6-30), social relationships (3-15), and environment (8-40). Each question is rated on a five-point Likert scale, where higher values indicate higher quality of life.

Brief Assessment of Recovery Capital (BARC) is a 10-item self-report measure of recovery capital with ten domains (substance use and sobriety, global psychological health, global physical health, citizenship and community involvement, social support, meaningful activities, housing and safety, risk-taking, coping and life functioning, recovery experience). Each item is rated in binary, so domain scores range from 0-5, and total score ranges from 0-10, where higher values indicate higher recovery capital.

Inclusion Criteria: 18 years of age or older Is fluent in English and has a 6th grade reading level or higher Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) score of ≥8 Has had at least one heavy drinking day in the past month Has some desire to cut down or quit their alcohol use Has a smartphone or computer with access to internet Exclusion Criteria: Has vulnerable population status (e.g., pregnant people, prisoners) Is at the time of study participation receiving in-patient psychiatric treatment involving hospitalization