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Currently submitted to: JMIR Mental Health

Date Submitted: Sep 23, 2026

Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.

A Taxonomy of AI Chatbot Harms in Substance Use Disorder Recovery: Content Analysis of Online Recovery Communities

  • Dong Whi Yoo; 
  • Tirthraj Rathod; 
  • Jaihyun Park; 
  • Jesse C. Stewart; 
  • Brandon G. Oberlin

ABSTRACT

This study analyzed user-reported AI chatbot interactions from 20 online substance use disorder recovery communities and developed a 7-domain taxonomy comprising crisis recognition and escalation failure, facilitation of return to substance use, unregulated clinical authority, inaccurate or misleading guidance, undermining of nonprofessional recovery support, recovery-identity undermining, and inappropriate AI emotional attachment or dependency.


 Citation

Please cite as:

Yoo DW, Rathod T, Park J, Stewart JC, Oberlin BG

A Taxonomy of AI Chatbot Harms in Substance Use Disorder Recovery: Content Analysis of Online Recovery Communities

JMIR Preprints. 23/09/2026:112742

DOI: 10.2196/preprints.112742

URL: https://preprints.jmir.org/preprint/112742

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