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Article Excerpt
Before the political and economic changes of 1990 there was in communist Hungary essentially no drug use comparable to that found in America or Western Europe. In the 1990s, following the political changes, the use of illegal substances grew substantially, as is shown even by the limited drug-epidemiological studies that are available.
Thus, between 1995 and 1999 the combined prevalence of illegal drug and inhalant use among a representative sample of tenth-year school students almost doubled, rising from 10% to 19% (Elekes & Paksi, 2000, Paksi, 2002). The pace of growth later slowed. In 2001, one-third of young people from Budapest aged 18-34 had used an illegal drug at some time in their lives. In 2003 this figure stood at 40% (Paksi, 2004).
The number of drug addicts being treated in healthcare institutions grew by 422% between 1995 and 2003. The number of people committing drug-related crimes grew by almost 1000% between 1990 and 2003 (Country Report on Drug Use in Hungary, 2004).
Illegal drug use is thus a relatively new phenomenon in Hungary. It has existed only to a significant degree for around ten years. This is also presumably why it was necessary to wait for there to be a significant number of recovered or treated drug users, of whom some undertook to give a written account of their experiences. It was not until around 2000 that autobiographical accounts written by such recovered drug users or members of their families began to appear (see Appendix 1).
Addiction recovery narratives are a new genre in Hungary. Despite the fact that in terms of alcohol consumption per capita the country is a world "leader", there are virtually no alcohol recovery stories. Certainly, no book of this nature has been published in the past five to six years. Drug addiction recovery narratives that have appeared in recent years may contribute to the creation of narrative types for psychoactive substance addicts. They may also allow us to identify other cultural stocks of stories--to use Hanninen's (2004) expression--that are used in the absence of recovery narratives.
We consider the study of the first "generation" of Hungarian addiction recovery narratives interesting for several reasons. Before we address this, we should define exactly what we mean by the terms we are using. Following Sarbin (1986) and Hanninen (2004) we define narrative forms "as a structure of meanings related to human events, by which the events are seen as parts of a plot, related to 'human predicaments and attempted resolutions'" (Sarbin, 1986 quoting Hanninen, 2004). In her narrative circulation theory, Hanninen (2004) distinguishes between told, lived and inner narratives, and highlights the links between them, and between the cultural and personal stock of stories, as well as with the given situation. From the autobiographical narratives we can identify the lived and inner narratives, as well as the stock of stories from which they are assembled. Hanninen (2004) also points out that told stories are always dialogic--they assume the presence of an audience, and they contribute to the enrichment of that particular community's cultural stock of stories.
Conceptual background
Recovery narratives can be considered a kind of illness narrative. We could also say that narratives needed for recovery fall into the "recovery from illness" segment of the stock of stories. We must therefore identify those possible factors which emerge from the illness narratives to construct the recovery narratives. "Illness elicits more than fitting the body into traditional community expectations or surrendering the body to professional medicine.... Postmodern illness is an experience, a reflection on body, self, and the destination that life's map leads to" (Frank, 1995, p. 7). Frank (1995) identifies the restitution narrative, which we can categorize as "yesterday I was healthy, today I am ill, and tomorrow I will again be healthy". Recovery--which can be seen as a form of social control--is the work of an external agent (the curer), not of the individual. In quest narratives, the illness is an experience, which starts the "journey", during which the individual learns more and new things about himself or herself. Here, the story belongs to the teller, not to the curer. Frank (1995) further distinguishes chaos narratives, which do not lead to recovery and in which there is no temporal sequence or narrative cause and consequence. The individual gives up the struggle for self-control.
Let us now take a closer look at addiction recovery narratives. "The path to and away from addictions has been described as a transformation or change of identity" (Hecksher, 2004). In the scientific literature this identity transformation has been described as a social process (e.g., Biernacki, 1986; McIntosh & McKeganey, 2000, 2001) and as an individual process (e.g., Koski-Jannes, 1998, 2002; Hanninen, Koski-Jannes, 1999, 2004; Keane, 2001; Diamond, 2000). Biernacki (1986) focuses on three forms of social process: Creation of new identity, reversion or reestablishment of an old identity, and the extension of an existing identity. But McIntosh and McKeganey (2001) emphasize two aspects: Desire to restore a spoiled identity and a sense of future (via the establishment of a new, nonaddict identity), and they emphasize--among other things--the turning points and the role of triggers in bringing about the change. It can be seen that these considerations are not much different from Frank's (1995) restitution (reestablishment of the old identity) and quest narratives. In the latter case, the creation of a new identity is in Frank's (1995) view not the emergence of a new "I", but the process by which the individual recognizes his or her own pre-existing true self.
Hanninen and Koski-Jannes (1999) describe among other things forms of recovery narrative that differ from AA narratives, and they are careful not to treat recovery as a single, uniform concept. They also draw attention to the kind of recovery work that the recovering individual has to carry out, and to the kinds of turning points that occur, as well as to the role of cognitive insight and ethical reevaluation. In Koski-Jannes' (2002) Study I focuses on the fact that the author mentions complex concepts from the recovery process' personal identity projects like accepting myself, cared for myself, spiritual rebirth (understood as a more authentic expression for the personal being), and freeing myself from unfitting social expectations. Hecksher (2004) describes several kinds of dealing with the past in the recovery process. Hyden (1995) emphasizes the search for meaning and the process of becoming the author of one's life in the recovery and change process. In his experience, recovery individuals do not talk passing of the symptoms' passing, but tell a story about theirselves, using various rhetorical and grammatical devices. The narrative is the tool by which a meaningful picture of transformation and recovery is created out of the pieces of the puzzle. In his view, discovering...
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