Abstract
BackgroundAddiction to drugs and alcohol constitutes one of the significant factors underlying the decline in life expectancy in the US. Several context-specific reasons influence drug use and recovery. In particular emotional distress, physical pain, relationships, and self-development efforts are known to be some of the factors associated with addiction recovery. Unfortunately, many of these factors are not directly observable and quantifying, and assessing their impact can be difficult. Based on social media posts of users engaged in substance use and recovery on the forum Reddit, we employed two psycholinguistic tools, Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count and Empath and activities of substance users on various Reddit sub-forums to analyze behavior underlining addiction recovery and relapse. We then employed a statistical analysis technique called structural equation modeling to assess the effects of these latent factors on recovery and relapse.ResultsWe found that both emotional distress and physical pain significantly influence addiction recovery behavior. Self-development activities and social relationships of the substance users were also found to enable recovery. Furthermore, within the context of self-development activities, those that were related to influencing the mental and physical well-being of substance users were found to be positively associated with addiction recovery. We also determined that lack of social activities and physical exercise can enable a relapse. Moreover, geography, especially life in rural areas, appears to have a greater correlation with addiction relapse.ConclusionsThe paper describes how observable variables can be extracted from social media and then be used to model important latent constructs that impact addiction recovery and relapse. We also report factors that impact self-induced addiction recovery and relapse. To the best of our knowledge, this paper represents the first use of structural equation modeling of social media data with the goal of analyzing factors influencing addiction recovery.
Highlights
Addiction to drugs and alcohol constitutes one of the significant factors underlying the decline in life expectancy in the US
We have proposed the use of structural equation modeling (SEM)—a multivariate latent variable modeling technique to estimate critical latent constructs such as emotional distress, physical pain, self-development, and relationships by analyzing social media activities of substance users
Problem formulation and overview of proposed approach Our aim was to determine the effect of emotional distress, physical pain, self-development efforts, relationships, and geographic disparities on drug addiction recovery and relapse, using SEM as a rigorous modeling methodology
Summary
Physical pain, relationships, and self-development efforts are known to be some of the factors associated with addiction recovery. After an individual decides to break the addiction cycle, they typically experience physical and emotional withdrawals that are manifested through sadness, restlessness, anxiety, nausea, vomiting, sweating, and cramping. Depending on factors such as the substances used as well as the amount and duration of use, such symptoms typically last for 3–5 days and can be managed by medications, vitamins, and exercise [2]. Relapse into drug use because they fail to follow substance use disorder treatment regimens [10]
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