El proceso de cambio en la adicción a la heroína: un análisis a través de metodologías cualitativas.

by Albiach Catala, Maria Carmen

ABSTRACT The investigation is aimed at determining the psychosocial factors involved in addiction processes and lifestyle changes in heroin addicts, as well as at expanding current knowledge related to the incidence of psychological, therapeutic and environmental aspects in the recovery process of such addicts. The methods employed were: five in-depth interviews (IDIs) with psychologists; the life stories of five former heroin addicts who had abstained from consumption for at least three years and who had experienced evident lifestyle changes. The In-depth Interviews reveal personal, social and substance-relative aspects existing prior to, during and following the period of abstinence and which, change in relation to their number, incidence and interaction within a given environment and time, are favourable and/or restricting (although not preventative) to the commencement and maintenance of the new lifestyle. The Life Stories present detailed accounts of lives replete with experiences and serve to locate the process in a historical context. Prior psychosocial variables, which, in their own right and as a result of their influence in the configuration of a personality, play a key role in the posterior recovery: the transmission of values, family cohesion, initiation age and motive, mental health, peer relationships and social integration. Social support (institutional and intimate), motivation, the perception of self-sufficiency, mental health and the gains obtained through the lifestyle change all effect a powerful influence on the evolution. The analysis of the post-abandonment stage allows us to infer that not only has the extinction of the addictive behaviour been obtained, but also a degree of stability within a normalised social environment and the ability to live free and emotionally independent of the past without fear of a relapse.