Life Story Narratives of Recovery from Dependent Drug and Alcohol Use: A Tool for Identity Reconstruction Within a Therapeutic Community

ABSTRACT: A narrative approach within criminology, sociology and psychology has been taken to understand various trauma experiences. In accordance with Bruner (1990) and Giddens (1991) narrative is seen as the prime agent in identity formation. The ‘fractured’ narratives of dependent drug and alcohol users are seen to constitute a ‘spoiled identity’. The present paper focuses on how life stories may be used as a tool for identity reconstruction within a therapeutic community (TC) treatment environment. Analysis of three individual life stories of recovering drug/alcoholdependent users together with follow-up interviews illustrates certain emergent common themes. The paper argues that accounts of the process of writing and exploring a life story provide evidence of three observable means of identity reconstruction: through selection and editing life story content, a heightened awareness of life story events, and by renegotiating power and control issues in the recovery process. The paper concludes by advocating the use of a life story interview within the core TC treatment method as a means of promoting and reflecting on identity change.