BACKGROUND:
Research
examining substance users' recovery has focused on individual-level outcomes
while paying limited attention to the contexts within which individuals are
embedded, and the social processes involved in recovery.
OBJECTIVES:
This
paper examines factors underlying African American cocaine users' decisions to
reduce or quit cocaine use and uses practice theory to understand how lifestyle
changes and shifts in social networks facilitate access to the capital needed
to change cocaine use patterns.
METHODS:
The study,
an in-depth analysis of substance-use life history interviews carried out from
2010 to 2012, included 51 currently not-in-treatment African American cocaine
users in the Arkansas Mississippi Delta region. A blended inductive and
deductive approach to data analysis was used to examine the socio-cultural and
economic processes shaping cocaine use and recovery.
RESULTS:
The
majority of participants reported at least one lifetime attempt to reduce or
quit cocaine use; motivations to reduce use or quit included desires to meet
social role expectations, being tired of using, and incarceration.
Abstinence-supporting networks, participation in conventional activities, and
religious and spiritual practices afforded access to capital, facilitating
cocaine use reduction and sobriety.
CONCLUSIONS:
Interventions
designed to increase connection to and support from nondrug using family and
friends with access to recovery capital (e.g., employment, faith community, and
education) might be ideal methods to reduce substance use among minorities in
low-income, resource-poor communities.
1 Center for Healthy Communities , University of
California Riverside , Riverside , California , USA.
2 Division of Health Services Research , University of
Arkansas for Medical Sciences , Little Rock , Arkansas , USA.
3 Department of Health Management and Policy ,
University of Kentucky , Lexington , Kentucky , USA.
4 Department of Pharmacy Practice , University of
Arkansas for Medical Sciences , Little Rock , Arkansas , USA.
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