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PREFACE
I was 19 years old and I was spending my second year at the University of
Szeged. I started to attend a drug prevention lecture which was held by a
policeman who tried to describe week by week why using drug is dangerous.
One day he invited a girl from the local drug addiction treatment center of
Szeged to share her personal story of drug addiction and recovery with the
students. At the end of her presentation I felt that I could ask many more
guestions to get know her story and this phenomenon better; how drug ad¬
diction escalates, and what happens after guitting drug use. In the next days
I have decided to do some minor research to fulfill my own interest: I have
read all the books and literature related to drug addiction, prevention or re¬
covery that were available in the library of the University. I have joined a
research group to get some professional help for my research interest. At this
time, I did not know anything about qualitative psychological research meth¬
ods, but instinctively I have started doing interviews and participant observa¬
tions in the local drug addiction center. Fortunately, after MA degree I opted
for and got a chance to do a PhD in Clinical Psychology and Addiction Pro¬
gram in Doctoral School of Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University, having
qualitative psychological methods and substance use as my main research
focus. My aim was to examine how recovery from substance addiction is
possible, and what subjective experiences the person has, who is healing from
addiction. Qualitative research methods are beneficial during the examination
of subjective experiences. The world of qualitative research methods has fas¬
cinated me from the moment I encountered it, because doing qualitative
research enables me to be a mediator between science and practice, also to
give voice to people, who have invaluable lived experience about certain
topics.
During the three years of my PhD studies I had a chance to read the gist
of the substance addiction and recovery literature. Moreover, I got involved
in several qualitative psychological research projects and I met and had a
chance to work with several great researchers from all around the world.
The present book is the outcome and summary of my most important
papers written during my PhD years and it concerns Interpretative Phenome¬