Understanding drug misuse and changing identities: A life story approach

Abstract

This paper is based upon a narrative inquiry into how early childhood experiences can be understood as a precursor to drug misuse and the forces that enable people to transform their habits and lives. It uses a life story approach in which an individual's subjective experiences can show how social environments and the wider social/cultural resources help people make sense and meaning of their lives. The paper focuses on one woman's story as a way of using a 'local story' to gain 'narrative knowledge' (Bruner, J. S. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.). It draws attention to the ways that cultural stories impact on a person's sense of self and identity and the need to educate workers in the field about the value of approaching work with drug misusers in ways that challenge ideas of identity as fixed and individual models of self. By listening to life stories, noticing and questioning dominant cultural and potentially pathologizing stories, we can help people pay attention to, and build upon, their stories of resistance and resilience that may otherwise go unnoticed and unheard (White, M., & Epston, D. (1990). Narrative means to therapeutic ends. New York: Norton.).

Deep Entanglements: The Complexities of Disengaging from Injecting Drug Use for Young Mothers

“…Many sociological studies advance the idea that recovery is less dependent on clinical withdrawal than on an individual's socially embedded, personal identity undergoing change (Hughes, 2007;Etherington, 2006;Gibson, Acquah, & Robinson, 2004;Baker, 2000;McIntosh & McKeaganey, 2001, 2000a, 2000bAnderson & Mott, 1998). Some make this claim based on the early "recovery without treatment" literature that suggests that the majority of serious or heavy drug users eventually reach a limit to what they are willing to compromise for the sake of their drug use and become interested in a different style of life, often upon entering into adult relationships with partners and/or children (Biernacki, 1986;Waldorf 1983;Winick, 1962).…”

Facilitating Recovery from Drug and Alcohol Problems — Reflections on Interviews with Service Users in Scotland

“…Not all research about drugs, alcohol and recovery focus on service users' voices, but there is a strong tradition of listening to individual's experiences of addiction and recovery in the multi-disciplinary field of addiction studies (e.g. Biernacki 1986;H¨anninen and Koski-J¨annes 1999;Larkin and Griffiths 2002;McIntosh and McKeganey 2002;Etherington 2006;Patterson et al 2009;Best et al 2011). …”

Elaboración metafórica en una intervención narrativo-conversacional de tratamiento del uso de drogas

“…En particular, la intervención representó una oportunidad para configurar una diferente percepción de sí, en un proceso de incipiente transformación y reapropiación identitaria a través del cual algunos lograron situarse más allá de una identidad signada por las drogas (Duero & Limón Arce, 2007;Etherington, 2006;Garzón & Riveros, 2012;Koski-Jännes, 2002;McIntosh & McKeganey, 2001). Se trata de la llamada "migración identitaria" que lleva a aprehender la recuperación como un proceso de resignificación del lugar de etiquetamiento y exclusión atribuido y asumido por los consultantes (White, 2002;White & Epston, 1993).…”