Vändpunkter - Viktiga faktorer i förändringen mot ett liv utan droger och kriminalitet

Sammanfattning: We have made a qualitative study that started from interviewees with substance abuse problems. All of the interviewees have a background as criminals and addicts and three of them have participated in twelve-step program. There is treatment that is intended to support and help addicts, but it's still not all that manage to get out of their addiction. That makes it important and interesting to find out what is causing this. Our purpose of this study was to investigate witch factors were important for recovering addicts to change their lives by turning points and how it has created a new identity-role. Suppose has also been to examine how they kept their new identity- role. We have used Erving Goffman's theatrical metaphor “The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life” to demonstrate the importance of us as individuals create us a role that becomes our identity and how it interacts with the environment. We have also used” Empowerment” to show the importance of getting help for self-help during treatment. It has become clear from the knowledge gained by the study, that our interviewees gone through a process of change as a turning point in life, a near-death experience. Through it, they have realized that life does not last forever and they have then understood attendant change was the only way out of addiction and the beginning of a new life.