Becoming with Care in Drug Treatment Services: The Recovery Assemblage: by Lena Theodoropoulou, Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2023, 216 pp., £120 (hbk), ISBN 978-0-367-76016-8

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Abstract

Questions about how we might productively describe, think about and respond to people’s transition away from patterns of ill-health involving alcohol and other drug use, have animated a burgeoning body of critical recovery scholarship. This work has highlighted how recovery-oriented policy and research has drawn on responsibilizing notions of self-management and citizenship to govern people who use alcohol and other drugs (Fomiatti, Citation2020; Fomiatti et al., Citation2019). Recovery experiences and practices too have become a recent focus for critical recovery scholars who have sought to extend thinking about alcohol and other drug recovery using assemblage theory (Duff & Hill, Citation2022; Sultan, Citation2023; Theodoropoulou et al., Citation2022). Following in this vein, Becoming with Care seeks to reimagine and ‘reclaim recovery’ through a synthesis of Deleuzo-Guattarian assemblage theory, Foucauldian heterotoplogy and critical care scholarship. Theodoropolou grounds their analysis in a rich empirical study developed through interviews and fieldwork conducted at two services in Liverpool and Athens. Rather than framing alcohol and other drug use and recovery as bound up in pathology, the book recasts them in terms of desire; desire for connection, desire for care and a desire to live life in ways that enhance agency. To those not familiar with critical perspectives and continental philosophy, this work might be a somewhat challenging read, but for anyone interested in critical perspectives on alcohol and other drugs this book will no doubt be worthwhile.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)158-159
Number of pages2
JournalDrugs: Education, Prevention and Policy
Volume31
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2024

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