Couples in recovery: A qualitative and narrative study
Description
This research explored the processes of relational healing in couples with one partner recovering from alcoholism or other psychoactive substance dependence. The participants were successfully recovering married couples, defined as couples (a) with one or both partners having been substance dependent while in the current marriage; (b) with the formerly substance dependent partner having attained at least two years of sobriety; and (c) with both indicating their desire and intention to continue their marriage. Focused joint interviews of six couples were conducted, videotaped, and transcribed to written text. Social constructionism and narrative psychotherapy provided the philosophical and practical bases for the questions. Couples were invited to be co-investigators offering their theories about their own and others' ideas and practices that had contributed to their relational resilience, and commenting on the researcher's interpretations of their stories. Norman Denzin's method of interpretive interactionism provided a framework for the research design and analysis of data, which included deconstruction of prior understandings of the phenomenon in the literature and of experiences in the cultural context of the interviews, the bracketing of key words and themes, and a search for epiphanies, or the moments and experiences that had been particularly salient in shaping the meanings the co-investigators attributed to their lives or relationships. Key words found included fear, love, work, honesty , synonyms for gratitude, loss of control or detachment, Twelve-Step language, and the language of spirituality. A narrative analysis explored the co-investigators' uses of contrastive rhetoric. Questions for further research are raised, and implications for social work education, practice, and policy are suggested