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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 addiction 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 recovery 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 methods, but instinctively I have started doing interviews and participant observations 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 Program 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 fascinated 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
