NCJ Number
218202
Date Published
2007
Length
16 pages
Annotation
In order to examine the relationship between women's identities as mothers and their identities as drug users, this chapter draws on interviews with 48 women living in the West Midlands area of England.
Abstract
The findings show that these women struggle to maintain their identities and responsibilities as mothers even while remaining substance-dependent. The women may engage in self-deceptions regarding the fulfillment of their parenting role, but this tends to be a coping mechanism rather than a devaluing of their identity and role as a mother. It is this sense of having a normative and acceptable identity as a mother that may hold the key to treating their debilitating drug abuse that undermines their parenting responsibilities. In their study of recovery from drug addiction, James McIntosh and Neil McKeganey (2002) emphasize the significance of a "spoiled identity" in the drug addict's motivation to quit drug use. The addict who commits to a drug-free life is motivated by the strong desire to repair his/her sense of worth by regaining a positive sense of self as a loving, responsible person. In the case of the women in the current study, this would involve building an authentic identity as a loving, responsible mother to her children. 38 references