Why the approach works
Built on approaches with real evidence — used responsibly.
Recovery Companion is a recovery-support tool, not a treatment. Every claim below is framed at the level of the approach it's built on — not as a promise about what the app itself has been proven to do.
Guided reflection, in the CBT tradition
Journaling research points to cognitive processing — making meaning of an experience, not just describing it — as the mechanism behind better outcomes. The app's guided prompts are built to nudge toward that kind of processing, then stop.
Basis: cognitive-processing theory of expressive & therapeutic writing
Contingency management, done by the clinic
Structured incentives for measurable behaviors are among the most consistently effective behavioral levers in substance use treatment. The app's momentum framework gives a clinic a way to track and reward engagement — the incentives themselves are funded and administered by the clinic, often with opioid-abatement dollars.
Basis: contingency management literature in SUD & MOUD care
Support for MOUD adherence
Staying on medication is one of the clearest levers for reducing overdose risk during treatment. The app supports adherence with per-dose logging and reminders, and tracks the injection or dosing cadence a provider has already set. Logging is self-reported and forgiving by design — a missed dose is never punished, because an all-or-nothing response to a lapse predicts worse outcomes than the lapse itself. The care team sees self-reported adherence trends to guide outreach. The app never adjusts treatment.
Basis: MOUD retention & overdose-risk research; self-report as the standard method for routine adherence monitoring; abstinence-violation-effect research
Harm reduction over an abstinence streak
Measuring progress by engagement and health — instead of a day count that resets to zero after a single lapse — is designed to avoid the abstinence-violation effect, where an all-or-nothing reset response predicts worse outcomes than a lapse itself would.
Basis: harm-reduction framework & abstinence-violation-effect research
Overdose prevention at predictable moments
Risk concentrates at specific, low-tolerance moments — after a period of abstinence, a missed dose, or release from a controlled setting. The app surfaces naloxone access and reduced-tolerance education at those moments, and routes quickly to 988, the SAMHSA helpline, or the care team.
Basis: overdose-risk & reduced-tolerance research
What we deliberately don't do
- No unvalidated AI “relapse-risk” scores presented as fact.
- No disease-treatment claims — this is a support tool, not a treatment for opioid use disorder.
- No rebuilding your EHR or care systems — the app links out to what your clinic already runs.
- Patients' raw journal entries are never exposed to the clinic — only engagement and aggregate signals.
- No adherence “compliance scores” dressed up as verified fact — self-reported logging is always labeled as self-reported.
The lesson we learned
From prescription digital therapeutics
The FDA-cleared category leader for opioid use disorder had a genuinely effective care model — and still struggled on reimbursement and prescription friction, the two things that determine whether a digital tool actually reaches patients. Recovery Companion is clinic-provided and funded through opioid-abatement dollars on purpose. That's the durable path: a tool your clinic can hand every patient directly, instead of one that has to survive a prior authorization.
Sources available on request — hello@recoverycompanion.app
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