A mixed methods exploration of the lived experience of pre-addiction and long-term recovery.

Abstract

Addiction is a complex issue within society. On-line gambling, gaming, internet and phone addiction have been cited in the media in recent years alongside addictions to drugs, alcohol and eating disorders. Although these phenomena are all addressed and treated separately, they are referred to under the same heading of addictions. Further, there is still no way to determine who might become an addict, or how best to help people with addiction problems to recover. This thesis will look at how addicts view their addiction and recovery from their current perspective. It aims to answer the following questions: 1) Is it possible to identify commonalities across differing addictions in the area of affect (feeling, thought, belief) regardless of addiction or gender? 2) Although addictions are studied separately, is there evidence of addictions being either concurrent or consecutive for an individual? 3)Does life improve with length of time in recovery? 4) How might findings from these studies be used to help progress the field of study for addiction? For these questions to be answered a mixed method approach was used. Study 1 used thematic analysis on existing secondary data sources. The data sources selected were the main reference books from Overeaters Anonymous (OA), Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA), The data was selected from sections of these books which contain essays from individuals in recovery recounting their addiction and recovery journey. For study 2 a quantitative approach was selected using online questionnaires asking participants to recall their lives prior to or at the beginning of their addiction and their lives today in recovery. Participants were required to be in recovery from one or more addiction(s) and be a minimum of 18 years old. The research showed that there are large areas of overlap of affect between addictions, regardless of addiction or gender, that multiple addictions are common for an individual and that life experience does improve with time in different domains, reducing in later life in line with general population norms.