Who is in Control? How Women in a Halfway House Use Faith to Recover from Drug Addiction
Journal Title: Religions - Year 2014, Vol 5, Issue 3
Abstract
Religious adherents from most major faith traditions struggle in balancing their individual agency with divine leadership. While this issue of individual versus divine control is complex for those in free society, it becomes even more so when applied to those in correctional and treatment settings. For those attempting to recover from drug addiction, a common conclusion is that drugs have taken control of their lives, thus it is necessary for them to reclaim control. Via a narrative analysis of semi-structured interviews with 30 former drug addicts residing in a faith-based halfway house for women, we explore how the women make sense of losing control of their lives due to their drug use, but then being taught to regain control by surrendering to a higher power. We find strong evidence of Deferring and Collaborative religious coping styles and these coping styles structure how the women discuss the future and their strategies for success.
Authors and Affiliations
Kent R. Kerley, Jessica R. Deitzer and Lindsay Leban
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP25385
- DOI https://doi.org/10.3390/rel5030852
- Views 323
- Downloads 10
Hidden Suffering and the Effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences
To understand suffering is to understand what it means to be human. Suffering focuses our attention on our vulnerability, which we would rather ignore or deny. As health care professionals (HCP) we need to be able to l...
William Apess, Pequot Pastor: A Native American Revisioning of Christian Nationalism in the Early Republic
Pequot Native and Methodist Minister William Apess has received growing recognition among historians as a unique voice for Native Americans—and minorities in general—during the early Republic. This essay began by inqui...
From Sadness to Madness: Tibetan Perspectives on the Causation and Treatment of Psychiatric Illness
Buddhist-derived “mindfulness” practices are currently enjoying popularity amongst both the lay population and health professionals in the West, especially in the treatment of psychiatric conditions such as depression....
Tropes of Fear: the Impact of Globalization on Batek Religious Landscapes
The Batek are a forest and forest-fringe dwelling population numbering around 1,500 located in Peninsular Malaysia. Most Batek groups were mobile forest-dwelling foragers and collectors until the recent past. The Batek...
Representation and Interpretation as the Basis of Participation in the Trinity
I suggest that God’s life is the Spirit’s eternal interpretation of the Word as the perfect sign (representation) of the Father. Creaturely interpretations imperfectly mirror the perfect coherence of being and represen...