Lay community healthcare workers' perspectives concerning the origins, dynamics and recovery from substance addiction

Abstract

This research report focuses on lay community healthcare workers' perspectives on the origins and dynamics of substance addiction and recovery. Individual, semi-structured interviews were conducted with five lay healthcare workers from a rural community on the West Coast of South Africa. These individuals were recruited using purposive sampling. Thematic analysis was used to render six central themes, relating to the origins and dynamics of, and recovery from substance addiction as a presentation of unresolved historical or intergenerational trauma, seen against Engel’s biopsychosocial model. These were related to the importance of the formative years, trauma exposure and contributing stressors, catalysts, both inhibiting and acting as incentives to change, motivational elements, resilience characteristics and conscripted silence. The last theme, conscripted silence, not exclusively, but specifically, strongly supports a relationship between alcoholism or substance dependence and unresolved historical trauma. These findings are in line with the results of the literature review.