Stories of building friendships during long-term recovery from problematic substance use

Abstract

Building friendship is crucial for attaining and upholding recovery from problematic substance use. However, how people who have used substances problematically develop friendships needs to be investigated more from a first-person perspective. To provide insight into how people in long-term recovery find meaning in their experience of building friendships. In semi-structured interviews, 17 people in recovery drew network maps and reflected on how friendships had developed during the long-term process. We analysed the narratives by way of a thematic narrative approach. Participants presented the friendship-formation process through four distinct storylines: (1) ‘I don’t make friends easily’; (2) overcoming barriers to building friendships; (3) ‘birds of a feather flock together’; and (4) ‘having “regular” friends makes me feel like an “average” person’. People in long-term recovery from problematic substance use felt haunted and hindered by past experiences when building friendships. These experiences created a social divide between those who had experienced problematic substance use and those who had not. The valuable insights that social workers can gain from this study can support friendship development for people in long-term recovery on multiple levels. By understanding someone’s self-perceptions and their perspectives on others, social workers can engage with barriers when people in recovery enter social environments such as work. We emphasise the significance of a long-term approach to overcoming barriers to building new friendships.