Candy, cash, gifts: How rewards help recovery from addiction

Harold Lewis, a recovering drug user, looks at a pair of sunglasses he won by picking paper slips with prizes written on them out of a fishbowl, Monday, July 18, 2022 at Liberation Programs in Bridgeport, Conn. “Recovery is just not all balled-up fists and clutched teeth, you know what I mean?" Lewis says. “It can be fun, where you can exhale and you can breathe and get excited — because you don’t know what you’re going to win today.” (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson) Harold Lewis, a recovering drug user, looks at a pair of sunglasses he won by picking paper slips with prizes written on them out of a fishbowl, Monday, July 18, 2022 at Liberation Programs in Bridgeport, Conn. “Recovery is just not all balled-up fists and clutched teeth, you know what I mean?" Lewis says. “It can be fun, where you can exhale and you can breathe and get excited — because you don’t know what you’re going to win today.” (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)

By CARLA K. JOHNSON / AP Medical Writer September 7, 2022 6 min read

Harold Lewis has been fighting drug addiction for years, but only recently started thinking recovery could be fun.

The 59-year-old former cook earned small prizes — candy, gum, gift cards, sunglasses and headphones — for attending meetings and staying in treatment for opioid addiction during a 12-week program in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

“Recovery should be fun because you’re getting your life back,” Lewis said.

For an increasing number of Americans, addiction treatment involves not only hard work, but also earning rewards — sometimes totaling $500 — for negative drug tests or showing up for counseling or group meetings.

There’s brain science behind the method, which is known as contingency management. And barriers to wider adoption of reward programs, such as government concerns about fraud, are starting to crumble.