"In the Thick of It": Addiction Recovery as a Process of Unwinding Defensive Strategies

• In Event: Sociology of Culture Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): 17. Trauma, Grief, & Caregiving

Abstract

By investigating how actors manage an exceptionally resilient and life-threatening case of habit—addiction to drugs or alcohol—this paper identifies the microsociological dynamics that enable actors to develop and acquire tools to escape durable cycles of self-destructive habitual behavior. This research takes a microsociological approach that understands habits as an embodied system of dispositions and practical strategies for navigating the social and physical world acquired throughout one’s history and self-development. I add to this work on habits by looking at habits as initially motivated by, and eventually cemented by, emotional energy-seeking and self-protection efforts. As has long been noted, some habits are more resilient than others, none more resilient than addiction. Studying the micro-processes of addiction and recovery in a particularly long treatment program allows me to see how we are capable of unwinding even the most resilient habits when given the cognitive, emotional, bodily, and temporal tools to manage negative habits. This work demonstrates that as recovering addicts develop these tools, they gain a sense of hope for the future and trust in themselves. I have observed that this hope and trust are grounded in 1) others demonstrating trust in the addict when they arrive, 2) people modeling trust and hope when working out their own thorny emotional issues, 3) the content of what the addicts learn about themselves, their history, and their likely future, and 4) the processes for managing emotional pain that residents develop over many months. In particular, these processes and strategies for pain management allow them to open up to fresh fields of engagement through which they can directly confront the emotional pain they once avoided through substance abuse. This direct management is key for unwinding life-threatening habits.

Author

• Pace T. Ward, University of Notre Dame