Stopping substance use can save a person's life. It does not automatically tell them what to do with that life afterward.
Addiction can take over a person's time, relationships, money, attention, and identity. When the substance use stops, all of that space does not immediately become peace. Sometimes it becomes emptiness.
There may be damaged relationships, interrupted education, an employment history that is difficult to explain, and years of feeling left behind. There may also be a frightening amount of time that used to revolve around finding, using, hiding, recovering, or trying to control a substance.
When that cycle ends, one of the hardest questions can be:
What am I getting up for now?
I took part in research about career development in recovery
I participated in the University of British Columbia's Career Development in Recovery Study. The research compared two eight-week online group programs for people with histories of substance use. Participants did not have to identify as abstinent or sober, but they could not have had major substance-use problems during the previous year.
One program focused on standard employment skills such as resumes, interviews, job searches, workplace conflict, and career progression. The other was based on Hope-Action Theory. It focused on hope, self-reflection, self-clarity, imagining possibilities, setting goals, taking action, and adapting when circumstances change.
The study began with 192 participants. Of those, 103 completed both the before-and-after surveys used in the initial analysis.
What the researchers found matters.
Participants in the Hope-Action program showed greater improvement in five areas: hopeful feelings about their careers, job-search clarity, work engagement, career optimism, and career adaptability. The largest difference was in how hopeful participants felt about their careers.
The program did not produce an immediate difference in employment status, hours worked, applications, interviews, job offers, job satisfaction, task performance, or intention to leave a job. That distinction is important. Hope did not magically create jobs in eight weeks.
It changed how people could see and approach the future.
Hope is not a resume skill
Traditional employment programs often begin with the assumption that someone already knows what they want. The person just needs a resume, an interview outfit, and help finding job postings.
That may be useful for someone who already has direction.
After addiction, the problem can be much deeper. A person may no longer know who they are without the substance, what they are capable of, or what kind of life would feel worth protecting. They may have spent years seeing themselves through failure, shame, criminalization, illness, or other people's expectations.
Before asking, “Where should I apply?” they may need space to ask:
- What still matters to me?
- What am I good at?
- What kind of environment supports my recovery?
- What work could put my stability at risk?
- What parts of my old identity do I want to keep?
- What future can I still imagine?
These are not soft questions. They can determine whether the next job, course, or plan becomes part of a sustainable life or another situation someone has to escape.
Purpose does not have to mean employment
Meaningful work can support recovery, but purpose should not be reduced to paid employment.
Purpose might come from education, family, culture, spirituality, volunteering, creativity, community, caring for another person, or becoming someone a friend can call. For someone early in recovery, attending appointments and learning how to live through an ordinary weekend may be purposeful work.
People who cannot work are not without value. Someone should not have to become economically productive before their recovery is considered meaningful.
Purpose is not about proving that you deserve to be alive. It is about finding something that makes staying present feel possible.
Hope is more than believing everything will be fine
The Hope-Action Inventory was developed as a career-development assessment, not addiction treatment or a diagnostic tool. Its framework treats hope as more than positive thinking.
Hope-Action Theory connects seven abilities: hopefulness, self-reflection, self-clarity, visioning, goal setting and planning, implementing, and adapting. That last ability matters. Recovery plans change. A course may be too demanding. A job may not be safe. Funding may be denied. Mental health may worsen. A relationship may end.
Adapting does not mean the hope was false. It means the route has to change.
Hope is not certainty that everything will work out. It is the belief that some future is still possible and that what you do next may help you move toward it.
Hope needs action, but action needs support
It is unfair to tell people to take action while ignoring the material barriers in front of them. Hope is difficult to sustain when someone cannot afford tuition, transportation, food, or rent.
That is where programs such as Alberta's Foundational Learning Assistance can matter.
Foundational Learning Assistance can help eligible unemployed or underemployed Albertans attend approved upgrading and skills-development programs. Depending on household financial need, assistance may contribute toward tuition, mandatory fees, books, supplies, transportation, food, housing, utilities, and other living expenses.
It is not an addiction program. It does not provide treatment, counselling, or ordinary health benefits. Funding is limited and not guaranteed.
What it can provide is a bridge.
Someone whose education was interrupted by addiction may be able to complete high-school prerequisites. Someone who cannot return to their previous work may be able to prepare for another field. Someone who has spent years believing they are incapable of learning may be able to complete one course and begin changing that belief.
An Edmonton place to begin
NorQuest College offers Edmonton programs that may qualify for Foundational Learning Assistance, including Academic Upgrading, English as an Additional Language, and Transitions to Employment.
A person could use upgrading to complete prerequisites for college, university, or a trade. They might strengthen English-language skills, prepare for a different occupation, or begin rebuilding confidence in a structured environment.
Funding is limited, and NorQuest uses its own request process before a student completes the provincial application. Applicants should speak with an advisor, confirm that their exact program is eligible, and ask whether funding is currently available before making financial or employment decisions.
Metro Continuing Education also provides high-school completion, upgrading, and English-language programming in Edmonton, although Foundational Learning Assistance is not available for every Metro program.
The important first question is not simply, “Does this school accept FLA?” It is, “Does my exact program qualify, is funding currently available, and what must I complete first?”
Before applying: Funding rules and program availability can change. Confirm eligibility, current funding availability, and application steps directly with Alberta and the educational institution before making financial decisions.
A small hope-and-action plan
If the future feels too large to plan, it may help to make the process smaller.
Start by asking what you want more of in your life, not what you think would impress other people. It could be stability, connection, usefulness, creativity, income, learning, service, health, or independence.
Then identify one direction connected to that value. If learning matters, the next action might be speaking with a NorQuest advisor. If connection matters, it might be attending a peer-support group. If usefulness matters, it could be volunteering once a week. If employment matters, it might begin with upgrading rather than immediately applying for jobs that recreate the same instability.
Make the first action small enough to complete. Hope often grows after action rather than arriving before it.
Then expect the plan to change. Recovery is not invalidated because a course is too difficult, a funding application is denied, or a career direction turns out to be wrong. Adapting is not failing. It is one of the abilities that allows hope to survive contact with real life.
What the study can and cannot tell us
The UBC study does not prove that hope prevents relapse or that career counselling treats addiction. The Summer 2026 participant report covers only career-related outcomes measured immediately before and after the programs. Substance-use outcomes and the three- and nine-month follow-up results had not yet been analyzed.
The study also had important limitations. About 47% of participants who began a program did not complete the after-program survey. Both programs were delivered online, and the researchers do not yet know whether the measured benefits lasted.
Even with those cautions, the initial finding is worth taking seriously: a program that helped people reflect, imagine, plan, act, and adapt produced a larger improvement in career hope than conventional employment-skills training. It did not immediately change whether people were employed. It changed something that may need to come first: whether they could picture themselves having a future.
People need something to recover toward
We should continue helping people survive addiction. We should also care about the life waiting for them afterward.
That means building recovery systems that connect people with more than treatment beds and crisis lines. It means access to housing, counselling, health care, education, income support, employment assistance, community, and places to belong.
Not everyone will be ready for school or work. Not everyone will find purpose in the same place. The goal is not to turn every person in recovery into a model of productivity.
The goal is to help people believe their future still contains choices.
Sometimes hope begins with a large vision. Sometimes it begins with filling out one application, attending one class, or discovering that a life once considered lost can still move in another direction.
Recovery is not only about what a person stops doing.
It is also about what becomes possible next.
Research note
The findings summarized here come from the Career Development in Recovery Study: Summer 2026 Report, a participant update provided by Dr. Robinder Bedi's Counselling/Psychotherapy Research, Teaching, and Service Lab at the University of British Columbia. I have not published the report itself because I could not locate an official public copy. Public background on the research is available through Teresa Maynes's UBC dissertation and the Hope-Action Inventory research page.