Making Sense of the Transition From the Detroit Streets to Drug Treatment

Abstract

In this article we consider the process of adjustment from active street sex work to life in structured substance abuse treatment among Detroit-area women who participated in a semicoercive program administered through a drug court. We examine this transition in terms of changes in daily routines and social networks, drawing on extensive qualitative data to illuminate the ways in which women defined their own situations. Using concepts from Bourdieu and Latour as analytical aids, we analyze the role of daily routines, environments, and networks in producing the shifts in identity that those who embraced the goals of recovery demonstrated. We conclude with a discussion of how the restrictive environments and redundant situations experienced by women in treatment could be paradoxically embraced as a means to achieve expanded opportunity and enhanced individual responsibility because women effectively reassembled their social networks and identities to align with the goals of recovery.

The Cost of Recovery

“…We developed a mixed method research proposal designed to capture changes in social networks and economic resources across three phases of court-supervised treatment and recovery. Several previously published papers present further detail on the qualitative and quantitative findings of this larger study (Draus, Roddy, and Asabigi 2015;Draus et al 2014;Roddy et al 2013). The findings in this report offer quantitative evidence regarding income reduction due to discontinuation of sex work and expense reduction due to the discontinuation of drug use.…”

Into the unknown: Treatment as a social arena for drug users’ transition into a non-using life

“…However, considering the phase of adjustment from the social setting of treatment to drug-free living, the inevitable pull towards previous lifestyles might play itself out. In the study by Draus et al (2015) the authors expected, and found, that desired behavioural and identity transformed in the participants as the external environment changed in terms of social networks, geographic settings, economic resources and opportunities. Hence, changing the exterior environment and social network once again when leaving treatment, another readjustment is needed, exposing newly establish behavioural and identity transformation to risk.…”

“…In these processes the engagement and involvement of formal services and service networks is described by research participants to be of great importance, potentially allowing them to pursue new trajectories in living and identity practices (Hughes, 2007;Neale et al, 2013;Nettleton et al, 2011). Draus, Roddy, and Asabigi (2015) take the concept of habitus in their analysis of women's accounts of their transition from active substance use to a recovery-oriented existence. In their study they take the social context of residential substance abuse treatment as a point of departure for studying the process of adjustment from active street sex work to life in structured substance abuse treatment.…”

Promoting Recovery Identities Among Mothers with Histories of Addiction: Strategies of Family Engagement

“…Here, we present findings that explore the question: What conditions shaped how and when mothers engaged family relationships that offered both threat and support to their emerging recovery identity? We highlight the challenges participants faced as they pursued what Draus and coauthors refer to as a “deliberate alteration of the self” (, p. 229). We refer to this process of change as “identity work” and “identity reconstruction.” This process is not an isolated, linear one.…”

“…Identity reconstruction is central to myriad life transitions, including transitions from addiction to recovery (Draus, Roddy, & Asabigi, ; McKeganey, ) and during reintegration postincarceration (Baldwin, ; LeBel, Richie, & Maruna, ). Such personal work is challenging and typically involves parallel changes in one's key relationships.…”