The Concept of Recovery and Temporality in Drug User´s Stories

Abstract

Abstract: Background: Temporality and the embodiment of time is an important dimension in different recovery models, as well as in drug users’ recovery stories. Aim: The main objective of this article is twofold: first, to perform a critical analysis of prominent recovery models and their multiple temporalities, and second, to explore of how female drug users, enrolled in drug treatment, narrate their recovery process. Methods: The empirical data is drawn from a previous work, which focused on female drug users, their experiences of drug use, and of being enrolled in drug treatment. That study, which is now revisited, was designed as a qualitative case study based on semi-structured, tape-recorded, and transcribed interviews with 29 recovering drug users. Results/Conclusion: The findings in this study indicate the existence of different recovery stories – a therapeutic story, a cognitive one, and a twelve-step story. These stories embody differing motives and temporalities. In the process of developing new stories of themselves, the women in recovery reorder their narratives and open up to connect with the past and present, and thereby initiate a process leading to new interpretations of self.