People, Places, and Things

Abstract

Chapter 7 describes the life history of Vernon, a middle-aged Black man with a history of crack addiction and four prior imprisonments. He moved to Houston in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and has successfully desisted from crime. In self-help, peer-group programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, it is commonly stressed that to manage addiction it is necessary to avoid the “people, places, and things” associated with previous substance use. Doing so is easier said than done, given that a lack of income and limited housing opportunities often push individuals back to the same environments where they used drugs in the past. Vernon’s case adds validity to the notion that residential change can provide the foundation for true behavioral change for people with substance abuse problems by separating them from the people and places of their past and by fostering an alternate set of daily routines and situations.