For example, mental health calls a period of not using a drink or drug sustained remission, according to the DSM. AA/NA calls it staying sober or staying clean, or being in the fellowship, or abstinence. There is a subtle but important distinction in the meaning of these terms.
Sustained remission comes in stages and can be, and usually is, sustained by some drug or medication. It does not have to be, but it usually is. People are diagnosed with a mental illness before sustained remission actually occurs, and they are medicated to match that diagnosis often while still in detoxification, or stages of protracted withdrawal. It used to be that sustained remission would be stable before diagnosing a mental illness or co-occurring disorder. Not any more, because the health insurance process demands a diagnosis immediately to justify payment for services, and so the whole process has been reversed.
Staying sober or staying clean is just that. And the alcoholic or addict is sustained by the fellowship and by developing a sense of depending on a Higher Power of some kind or other. What the Higher Power is to an individual is up to them. Literally. AA/NA is a spiritual program, not a religious program.
That is a vastly different process, language and experience.
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