Young adult resilience for recovery to substance addiction in Assam, India: Practitioner reflections on pathways to recovery model

India has more than 50% of its population below the age of 25 years. This is a huge potential human resource. However, the mental health report, National Mental Health Survey (NMHS) for the state of Assam, on which this chapter is based, highlights that in 2015–2016, nearly 5.85% of people aged 18 years and above required active interventions for one or more mental health issues including substance use disorder (SUD). This data reflects that mental wellbeing can be a hindering factor for sustainable socio-economic development and should be considered a public health priority. This chapter focuses on ‘The Big Picture’ project that was aimed at understanding the lived experience of young Assamese people around risk, recovery and resilience in relation to substance misuse. The bedrock of the project was the use of psychosocial visual participatory methods involving photo-led interviews which centralizes the lived experience of our participants. In total 15 young Assamese people (11 men; 4 women) aged 19–24 years provided detailed information about their journey to recover from SUD. This allowed the development of a multi-route, multidirectional pathways to recovery model comprising three phases: Recreational Use, Addiction (Relaxed, Chaotic, Strategic) and Supported Recovery. This chapter provides a summary and practitioner reflection in the context of Assam on the pathways to SUD recovery model developed in ‘The Big Picture.’