Skip to main content

Reordered Narratives and the Changes in Self-Understanding From Addiction to Recovery

  • Chapter

Abstract

This chapter is about being a drug user or an alcoholic, as well as trying not to be one. Examining personal stories of people at different stages between addiction and recovery will help delineate salient features of the phenomenology of addiction and of the change leading to recovery. I will also examine the changes in identity as constructed in the narratives of the participants. The analysis will highlight temporality as a central feature of the experience of addiction; I will argue that temporality not only reflects the lived experience but has a bidirectional relationship with identity elements of which are both revealed in temporal references but also shaped through the perception of time.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Berna, F., Bennouna-Greene, M., Potheegadoo, J., Verry, P., Conway, M. A. and Danion, J.-M. (2011). Impaired Ability to Give a Meaning to Personally Significant Events in Patients with Schizophrenia. Consciousness and Cognition, 20(3), 703–711. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2010.12.004.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Biernacki, P. (1986) Pathways From Heroin Addiction: Recover Without Treatment. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bruner, J. (2008) The ‘remembered’ self. In Neisser, U. and Fivush, R. (eds.) The Remembering Self: Construction and Accuracy in the Self-Narrative: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 41–54.

    Google Scholar 

  • Caffi, C. (1999) On Mitigation. Journal of Pragmatics, 31(7), 881–909.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Charles, N. (2001) Through a Glass Brightly: The Fall and Rise of an Alcoholic. London: Robson Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Charmaz, K. (1991) Good Days, Bad Days: The Self in Chronic Illness and Time. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, S. and Taylor, L. (1972) Psychological Survival: The Experience of Long-Term Imprisonment. Middlesex: Penguin Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dawson, D. A. (1996) Correlates of Past-Year Status Among Treated and Untreated Persons With Former Alcohol Dependence: United States, 1992. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 20(4), 771–779.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Denzin, N. K. (1988) The Alcoholic Self. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Edwards, G., Orford, J., Egert, S., Guthrie, S., Hawker, A., Hensman, C., Mitcheson, M., Oppenheimer, E. and Taylor, C. (1977) Alcoholism: A Controlled Trial of ‘Treatment’ and ‘Advice’. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 38, 1004–1031.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fasulo, A. (2007) Theories of self in psychotherapeutic narratives. In Bamberg, M. G. W., Fina, A. D. and Schiffrin, D. (eds.) Selves and Identities in Narrative and Discourse (Vol. 9). Amsterdam & Philadelphia, John Benjamins Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heidegger, M., Macquarrie, J. and Robinson, E. (2009). Being and Time. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Irvine, L. (2000) ‘Even Better Than the Real Thing’: Narratives of the Self in Codependency. Qualitative Sociology, 23(1), 9–28.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jin, H., Rourke, S. B., Patterson, T. L., Taylor, M. J. and Grant, I. (1998) Predictors of Relapse in Long-Term Abstinent Alcoholics. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 59(6), 640–646.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johnstone, N. (2011) A Head Full of Blue. London, UK: Bloomsbury Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kemp, R. (2009) The Temporal Dimension of Addiction. Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, 40(1), 1–18.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kemp, R. (2011) The Worlding of Addiction. The Humanistic Psychologist, 39(4), 338–347.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lenson, D. (1995) On Drugs. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lloyd, G. (1993) Being in Time: Selves and Narrators in Philosophy and Literature. Routledge: Chapman & Hall, Incorporated.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Marlowe, A. (2002) How to Stop Time: Heroin From A to Z. Virago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McAdams, D. P. (1985) Power, Intimacy, and the Life Story: Personological Inquiries Into Identity. New York, London: The Guildford Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McIntosh, J. and McKeganey, N. (2001) Identity and Recovery From Dependent Drug Use: The Addict’s Perspective. Drugs-Education Prevention and Policy, 8(1), 47–59.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Merriam, S., Courtenay, B. and Reeves, P. (2001) Time and Its Relationship to Development in the Life Course: Some Reflections from a Study of HIV-Positive Adults. Journal of Adult Development, 8(3), 173–182.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Reilly, E. B. (1997) Sobering Tales: Narratives of Alcoholism and Recovery. USA: University of Massachusetts Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Raffard, S., D’Argembeau, A., Lardi, C., Bayard, S., Boulenger, J.-P. and Linden, M. V. d. (2010). Narrative Identity in Schizophrenia. Consciousness and Cognition, 19(1), 328–340. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2009.10.005.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reith, G. (1999) In Search of Lost Time: Recall, Projection and the Phenomenology of Addiction. Time & Society, 8(1), 99–117.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ricoeur, P. (1980) Narrative Time. Critical Inquiry, 7(1), 169–190.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Singer, J. A. (2001) Living in the amber cloud: A life story analysis of a heroin addict. In McAdams, D. P., Josselson, R., Lieblich, A. and Amia (eds.) Turns in the Road: Narrative Studies of Lives in Transition. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, pp. 253–277.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • The Betty Ford Institute Consensus Panel. (2007) What Is Recovery? A Working Definition From the Betty Ford Institute. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 33(3), 221–228.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vaillant, G. E. (1996) A Long-Term Follow-Up of Male Alcohol Abuse. Archives of General Psychiatry, 53(3), 243–249.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Copyright information

© 2015 Georgia-Zetta Kougiali

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Kougiali, GZ. (2015). Reordered Narratives and the Changes in Self-Understanding From Addiction to Recovery. In: Piazza, R., Fasulo, A. (eds) Marked Identities. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137332813_8

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics