Beyond Abstinence: Delamere Study Reaches Major Milestone in Redefining Addiction Recovery

1. Introduction
2. What is the Knowledge Transfer Partnership?
3. What is the Importance of the Addiction Recovery Study?
4. What Happens Next?
5. Measuring What Matters: How to Define Success in Addiction Treatment

In 2025, Delamere launched a pioneering study in partnership with Manchester Metropolitan University to measure outcomes in relation to the long-term effectiveness of addiction rehab treatment. We’re delighted to announce that the project’s initial research phase is now complete.

What is the Knowledge Transfer Partnership?

Funded by Delamere and Innovate UK, the Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) aims to explore what lasting recovery in addiction truly looks like, and how it can be better understood and measured.

Currently, there is no single agreed definition of recovery. One of the clearest early insights from the research is that people’s understanding of it appears to change as they move through treatment and beyond.

KTP Impact Lead Emma Davidson, who leads the research programme, said: “Recovery is complex. Someone can be abstinent, but that alone cannot tell us everything about their health, relationships, wellbeing or the life they are building.

“An important part of this research has been listening to people with lived experience and involving them in shaping what we ask and what we measure.

“That gives us a much richer understanding of recovery and allows us to look beyond a single marker of success towards the different ways people experience and sustain recovery over time.”

What is the Importance of the Addiction Recovery Study?

Everything we do here at Delamere is driven by achieving the best possible outcomes for our guests.

Our goal is to move addiction treatment from simply measuring success by treatment completion rates, to instead measuring meaningful outcomes that truly matter to individuals in their lifelong recovery journey.

That’s why we launched our personalised and structured post-residential support service, Bloom. Our Bloom programme includes 12 weekly sessions completed after a stay with Delamere, designed to support long-term recovery as guests settle back into daily life.

The KTP project will support a new circular evaluation capability that allows us to design and launch new post-residential treatment services under Bloom and evaluate and optimise the outcomes of our Delamere Difference Treatment Model.

Carrying on beyond the research project, the circular evaluation will allow the Delamere team to place our treatment model under real scrutiny to attain better evidence, and a better understanding of what recovery truly looks like.

What Happens Next?

With the project’s initial research phase now concluded, the study is moving into detailed analysis of the data collected. This will be carried out through Delamere’s Knowledge Transfer Partnership with Manchester Metropolitan University.

Martin Preston, founder and chief executive of Delamere, said: “This is an important milestone in a project that goes right to the heart of what recovery actually means.

“We talk a lot as a sector about successful treatment, but the way we measure that success has not always kept pace with what recovery actually looks like.

“Completing treatment matters. Abstinence matters. But neither tells you the whole story.

“Recovery can also mean rebuilding relationships, improving health, finding confidence, connection and purpose, and building a life people want to protect.

“We are putting our own treatment model under proper scrutiny because we want better evidence and a better understanding of what lasting recovery really looks like. Providers should be able to demonstrate what successful recovery means, not simply define success for themselves.”

Measuring What Matters: How to Define Success in Addiction Treatment

At the heart of this research project is the goal to develop a more meaningful way of understanding and measuring recovery outcomes in addiction treatment.

Previously, this has often been restricted to completing a residential programme or remaining abstinent. However, there is often a much bigger picture to what recovery looks like involving relationships, health, confidence, and the ability to build a fulfilling future.

Delamere’s Knowledge Transfer Partnership with Manchester Metropolitan University will place our own treatment model under rigorous scrutiny, with the aim of measuring what matters and defining what success in addiction treatment truly looks like.