June 20, 2004

"So, how did you get here?"

Charting Women's Journeys: From Addiction to Recovery

Judith Grant, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio

 

Introduction

          This paper highlights an exploratory qualitative study1 recently completed on 25 women's experiences of addiction to controlled substances2 coupled with their recovery processes. This study draws on the theory of the social act (Mead, 1938), along with the conceptual framework of symbolic interactionism in order to uncover the complexities of respondents' lives. One of the theoretical challenges was to analyze women's experiences in a way that captured their agency and, at the same time, recognized shared patterns of meaning that emerged from their actions. I argued that, through social action around use/abuse of controlled substances, women's definitions of individual and social identities changed, a necessary action for them to enact both addiction and recovery processes. The following discussion highlights the background to the research, along with an overview of the study and the relevant findings germane to this work. 

Background

          From 1994-1997, I was involved in a community project (The WASA Project3) in Canada as a researcher/educator working with over 300 women formerly addicted to controlled substances (Grant, 1997). My job was to establish programs that would help to educate, empower and provide knowledge about alternative lifestyles for them. As I worked with these women, I was especially struck by their many stories of abuse, violence and sexual assault that had occurred in their pre-addicted years. I was also interested in how they managed to overcome addiction and to consider recovery for themselves. Many times I asked them, "So, how did you get here," meaning, "How did you get into recovery?" Their answers were varied, yet similar.

          Women's stories of recovery experiences showed the use of strategies that were particularly effective in their changes: geographically moving from where they formerly lived, a rebuilding of structure in their lives that included the establishment of new relationships, as well as reestablishing previous relationships with family, children, partners, and friends, who were not addicted to controlled substances. They seemingly formed new lives for themselves as they interacted with families, partners, children and society in general. My community work experiences, my time with these women, and my academic research work has influenced my interest in these processes. Consequently, this exploratory study is a natural progression of both my previous community work in Canada and my ongoing research interests.

Previous Research

          Although a vast body of work has developed during the past 20 years on drug use, abuse, addiction, and treatment, literature on women's experiences of addiction and recovery processes is not extensive (Rosenbaum, 1981; Adrian et al., 1996; Murphy and Rosenbuam, 1999; Ettorre, 1992; Campbell, 2000). There is also a singular absence of work on this issue in the field of criminology. If addressed, issues of women' experiences of addiction/recovery have centered mainly on women in conflict with the law (Rosenbaum, 1998; Currie, 1993), along with negative aspects of their lives related to their substance abuse. Much of the literature generates a stereotypical image of women who use controlled substances, thus highlighting a distortion of the reality of their lives (Campbell, 2000; Plant, 1997). Historically, concerns about women and use of controlled substances revolved around essentially moral issues: the supposed effects of alcohol and other drug use on women's "maternal instincts," their ability to care for children and husbands, sexuality and "female purity" (Blackwell et al., 1996: 229). Female users of controlled substances have been considered more pathological than male counterparts (Clark, 1996). More research is needed that focuses on women's individual experiences in addiction and recovery processes providing insight into their issues of concern and individual needs.

          Such studies are important because researchers know very little about the processes through which the decision to start and subsequently stop using controlled substances occur (McIntosh and McKeganey, 2002; Woodward et al., 1997), particularly as such processes relate to women's lives. Relatively little is written about women's addiction and recovery processes from their perspectives; it has basically been a "non-field" (Ettorre, 1992: 3). This assertion implies that women's situations and needs are largely unacknowledged within the research world as related to use/abuse of controlled substances and, subsequently, to recovery processes as well.

The Study

          Two objectives were of concern in this study: (1) an exploration of how respondents began to engage with controlled substances, how they processed addiction experiences, and how they disengaged from use/abuse of drugs and (2) a consideration of the relationship between substance abuse and respondents' selves and social identities through such experiences. 

          As described by Blumer (1969), this dissertation was influenced by the sociological principles of symbolic interactionism. The central insight of interactionist theory is that all behaviours, emotions, beliefs, rules, and objects become meaningful within the broader social context of interaction with others (Blumer, 1969; Charon, 2001; Hewitt, 2003). This perspective views the individual as an ever-changing actor: communicating, role taking, cooperating, and problem solving in a stream of action. The symbolic interactionist perspective focuses on processes of social interaction, how people define situations and what meanings such interactions have for them (Blumer, 1969). Therefore, this paradigm allowed me to focus on social interaction for respondents in this study: a woman with herself, with others, and with the social object, controlled substances.