Social Ties, Sober Housing, and the Addiction Recovery Infrastructure

• In Event: 4407 - Social Capital: Tie Mobilization

Abstract

Eight decades ago Alfred Lindesmith articulated what would become the dominant sociological theory of drug addiction, relating a purely physiological phenomenon to the social and cultural milieus in which addicts were embedded. Since then, however, little attention has been paid to the social ties that form between addicts as they try to terminate their addiction. This paper draws on the case of a recovery-oriented housing program for young adults in Greater Boston, and situates it within the region’s larger recovery infrastructure, to investigate how social ties shape efforts to maintain sobriety and avoid relapse. It suggests that proximate ties—to erratic roommates, co-residents who relapse, and peers who are selling drugs—can pose challenges to recovery, but that distal ties can, too. Recovering addicts often spend months or years traveling through the constituent agencies of the recovery infrastructure, subjecting them to a host of actors who obtain, retain, and wield information about their personal lives and, consequently, leaving them vulnerable to rumors, conflicts, and other threatening social situations emanating from multiple and at times unexpected actors and places. These findings demonstrate the necessity of analyzing interactive and transactional patterns within and between recovery spaces and also suggest that prevailing network terminology is inadequate for explaining the social determinants of sobriety and relapse.

Author

• Joseph Wallerstein, Harvard University