Evidence map›Paper›PMID 39985483›Full record

ArticleAlcohol, clinical & experimental research2025

Content analysis of substance use disorder recovery discourse on Twitter: From personal recovery narratives to marketing of addiction treatment.

Alex M Russell, Danny Valdez, Mingxuan Wang, Jon-Patrick Allem, Brandon G Bergman, John F Kelly, Dana M Litt, Philip M Massey

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Alcohol, clinical & experimental research, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
3citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

3 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. A Narrative Review of Nicotine and Alcohol Addiction Recovery Content on TikTok.Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry · 2025
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

8 authors.

Alex M RussellRecovery Research Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Danny ValdezDepartment of Applied Health Science, School of Public Health, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA.
Mingxuan WangRecovery Research Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Jon-Patrick AllemDepartment of Health Behavior, Society and Policy, Rutgers School of Public Health, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA.
Brandon G BergmanRecovery Research Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.ORCID 0000-0003-2427-4738
John F KellyRecovery Research Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.ORCID 0000-0001-6915-0750
Dana M LittSchool of Social Work, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, Texas, USA.
Philip M MasseyDepartment of Community Health Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA.

Funding

Hashtag HPV: Engaging parents through social media to increase HPV vaccinationR01CA229324 · NCI · UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT FAYETTEVILLE · PI LO, WEN-JUO · 2019 to 2022
$1.9M
Mentoring in Patient-Oriented Addiction ResearchK24AA022136 · NIAAA · MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL · PI KELLY, JOHN F. · 2014 to 2023
$1.8M
Funded extension request for "Expanding recovery support for emerging adults with alcohol use disorder: Training in the science of social network sites"K23AA025707 · NIAAA · MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL · PI BERGMAN, BRANDON G. · 2018 to 2023
$1.0M
Characterizing alcohol use disorder recovery-related exposures on Twitter: Content, cluster, and network analysisK01AA030614 · NIAAA · UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT FAYETTEVILLE · PI Alex Russell · 2022 to 2026
$734k
Development and Pilot of a Parent Based Intervention for Reducing High-risk Social Networking Site Cognitions, Alcohol Use, and Negative Consequences Among AdolescentsR34AA026332 · NIAAA · UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS HLTH SCI CTR · PI LITT, DANA M · 2019 to 2022
$700k
NCI NIH HHS R01 CA229324NCI NIH HHS R01CA229324NIAAA NIH HHS K01 AA030614NIAAA NIH HHS K01AA030614NIAAA NIH HHS K23 AA025707NIAAA NIH HHS K23AA025707NIAAA NIH HHS K24 AA022136NIAAA NIH HHS K24AA022136NIAAA NIH HHS R34 AA026332NIAAA NIH HHS R34AA026332
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundSubstance use disorder (SUD) is a prodigious public health issue characterized by a substantial treatment gap. Despite challenges, millions have resolved a prior significant alcohol or drug problem, increasingly using online supports as a part of their recovery efforts (e.g., virtual mutual-help group meetings, traditional social networking sites [SNS]). However, the content surrounding SUD recovery-related discussion on SNS such as Twitter remains largely unexamined. To fill this gap, we explored public tweets using SUD recovery-related hashtags.

methodsFrom January 1, 2022, to December 31, 2022, 455,968 public tweets were collected using SUD recovery-related hashtags. Natural language processing was used to identify and remove irrelevant groupings of tweets from the dataset, resulting in a final corpus of 186,460 tweets. A random subsample of 1800 tweets was extracted for content analysis, involving codebook development, manual annotation by trained coders, and inter-rater reliability assessment (average Cohen's κ = 0.77).

resultsNearly half (41.7%) of SUD recovery-related posts were from individuals in or seeking recovery, while 21.3% originated from addiction treatment industry accounts. Common themes included addiction treatment marketing (27.4%; some of which promoted scientifically unsupported products or services), emotional support (15.6%), celebrating a recovery milestone (15.4%), alcohol/drug-related sociopolitical commentary (14.7%), expressions of gratitude (11.5%), and mutual-help group participation (8.7%).

conclusionsSUD recovery-related content on Twitter reflected individuals seeking social support during efforts to initiate or maintain recovery. However, these accounts may be met with marketing material from entities that misrepresent their services or promote products based on unsubstantiated claims. Stricter (or enforcement of existing) regulations may be warranted to protect vulnerable SNS platform users from entities seeking to exploit them for financial gain.

Indexed as

Social MediaSubstance-Related DisordersHumansNarrationalcoholrecoverysocial mediasubstance use disorderTwitter

Identifiers

PMID39985483
PMCPMC11928276

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceTDM
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.