"Out there": the ecology of addiction in drug abuse treatment discourse

FRANÇAIS :
Une tendance croissante en recherche sociale sur l'usage de drogues illicites a eu pour conséquence de ne plus porter attention aux questions conventionnelles telles que l'étiologie des problèmes de drogues et aux résultats des interventions prenant en compte la façon dont ces problèmes sont socialement construits dans et à travers la praxis humaine. Dans cet article, l'auteur utilise une approche constructioniste pour démontrer et expliquer ce qu'il appelle l'écologie de l'addiction dans les discours de traitement de la toxicomanie. Ces points de vue délimitent un espace "hors de là" marqué par la dégradation, la saleté, la solitude et la sauvagerie qui tente ceux qui vivent là à devenir amoraux et asociaux.
ENGLISH :
A growing trend in social research concerning illicit drug use has entailed suspending regard for conventional questions such as the etiology of drug problems and the outcomes achieved by assorted interventions in favor of focusing analytic attention on how drug problems are socially constructed in and through human praxis. In this paper, I use a constructionist approach to demonstrate and explain endogenous accounts of what I am calling the ecology of addiction in drug abuse treatment discourse. These accounts posit a space "out there" marked by its degradation, dirtiness, solitude, and savagery which commonly tempts those who must live there to also behave amorally, licentiously, and/or savagely. I explain these accounts by showing their fundamental utility in light of specific conceptual puzzles that participants in drug abuse treatment discourse must inevitably solve. Namely, speaking in terms of this ecology of addiction provides participants with a compelling narrative means for reconciling the following two claims: 1) they are chronically prone to enslavement by their addictions, and 2) their addictions can he controlled through ongoing participation in a communal project of mutual help. (Author's abstract.)