Abstract
This study explores experiences and understandings of people who have engaged with the process of recovery from alcohol or drug problems over a long period of time. Although there is a large body of research studies on recovery, few have examined long-term recovery from a qualitative perspective. The participants in this study were women who have not used alcohol or drugs for 15 years or longer and who described themselves as ‘in recovery’. They have been involved with AA throughout this time. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews in conjunction with participants’ drawings. Participants’ accounts suggest that their involvement with AA activities and processes over a long period evolved into habitual actions which became interwoven into their ordinary daily activities. It is suggested that the qualitative approach of IPA can be seen as complementing and illuminating quantitative studies. This study can provide a basis for future studies using larger samples or different groups and move towards making more general claims.
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Notes
William James (1899, p.64) notes that habits are often designated as ‘bad’: ‘We speak, it is true, of good habits and of bad habits; but, when people use the word ‘habit’ in the majority of instances it is a bad habit which they have in mind. They talk of the smoking-habit and the swearing-habit and the drinking-habit, but not of the abstention-habit or the moderation-habit or the courage-habit. But the fact is that our virtues are habits as much as our vices. All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits—practical, emotional, and intellectual’.
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Shinebourne, P., A. Smith, J. ‘It is Just Habitual’: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of the Experience of Long-Term Recovery from Addiction. Int J Ment Health Addiction 9, 282–295 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-010-9286-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-010-9286-1