Boshears Gsa Presentation Public

Relationality and identity migration among methamphetamine users: An exploratory study

Presented at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the Georgia Sociological Association, Morehouse College, Atlanta, 30 October, 2009

Paul Boshears The European Graduate School

“

I mean crystal meth can take you down really, really dark paths. And you’ve seen, you hear horror stories – I just really don’t want to be that person….

”

(22-year-old white male)

That process through which individuals develop problematic use of methamphetamine is the same mechanism by which they can overcome their problematic usage.

Relationality What insights might a focus upon the relational dynamics of selfhood provide to understanding how methamphetamine practices are negotiated throughout the drug-use career? The interdependencies that form as methamphetamine users pursue opportunities: to practice meth use, to disclose the consequences of their practices, and to display recovering identities, illustrate a fundamentally relational character to methamphetamine use.

Assuming the Self •

“Who I am” am is fundamentally a social event, it is not a substance or kernel that contains my essence.

•

This performative self (Butler, 2005) is based upon and adjusted within my social and physical environments.

•

My uniqueness is determined by my performance of my roles within these environments; “who I am” develops within a context.

“We learn from our experiences” we revise in light of experiences “Being true to ourselves” references past performances Butler, J. (2005). Giving an account of oneself. New York: Fordham University Press.

Based on our ethnographic study of 100 current and former users of methamphetamine, we found that participants in this study overwhelmingly, reference the social pressures and their environments that initiate, spur, and inhibit their use or cessation of methamphetamine and other drugs. In privileging the social component of addiction, we contribute to the developing literature on the social conceptualization of addiction by interpreting our data in light of this model. (Latkin, Knowlton, Hoover, & Mandell, 1999; Weinberg, 2000; May 2001; Gibson, Acquah, & Robinson, 2004; Pilkington, 2007; Graham, Young, & Wood, 2008; Adams, 2008)

Migrating Identities Hughes (2007, 2009) proposes a social conceptualization of addiction emphasizing substance use “as a set of embodied social practices.” “Addiction” is a discursive practice – a narrative that people perform. In performing this discourse those that practice substance use affirm and reinvigorate their identities as “addicts.” The popular mode in which “addiction” is thought of and discussed limits how we can understand drug use practices as well as how we might transform the phenomenon.

Identity Migration There are three stages in the identity migration: 1) 2) 3)

Apprenticeship Disclosure Re-covering

Hughes, K. (2007) Migrating identities: The relational constitution of drug use and addiction. Sociology of Health & Illness, 29(5), 673-691 Hughes, K., G. Valentine, & C. Kenten. (2009) The time of our lives: Towards a space-time understanding of Internet gambling. The British Journal of Sociology (forthcoming).

Identity Migration: Migration

1) Apprenticeship – methamphetamine use is a learned behavior. So all my dad’s friends were junkies....from the time I was twelve I’d seen these dudes firing dope, shooting dope up.... But one day I come in and I said, “Let me try some of that.” I poured some in a spoon, shot some water in it―the dude was trying to tell my dad, “You need to help him or let me help him or something.” Before he had it out I had it pulled up and fired it in my arm just like a champ. Just like I was a professional at it.

(34-year-old white male)

Identity Migration: Migration

2) Disclosure – Problematic use as performative speech act. The first time I tried not to do it on the weekend I said, “Well, uh, you got a problem.”

(47-year-old white male)

I knew I was going to eventually lose all my children and everything I had if I didn’t quit [....] And I’m like, “I don’t want to be one of these people. I don’t want to be one of these people that their life has fell apart around them and you ain’t got enough sense to get your act cleaned up.”

(48-year-old white male)

Identity Migration: Migration

3) Re-covering – cessation of drug practices are now substituted with recovery practices. In order to succeed you have to surrender and you have to be willing to become teachable, you have to be willing to take directions, and you have to realize that you’re [...] not in charge.

(42-year-old white male)

Because when you’ve quit doing it you have a mental break. You have a mental break from your normal self [....] You’re not delusional but you have pretty much lost your mind. You have to regroup, find your real mindset again.

(52-year-old white male)

Conclusion & Future Studies There is a need within the “addiction science” (NIDA) community to develop evocative-analytical portrayals of substance use (Hockey & Allen-Collinson, 2009). Future studies might investigate other substance abusing communities and their inter-group dynamics Policy development which calls for greater community responsibility for substance use and prevalence of use.

With great thanks Our participants Dr. Miriam Boeri David Gibson Liam Harbry Karen Rommelfanger