Abstract
This paper situates Sikh identity, spirituality, and recovery from alcohol addiction within a nexus of complex social, psychological, and cultural factors. The way in which affected people in Sikh communities in Britain are able to locate and utilize unofficial recovery trajectories, often successfully alleviating suffering, presents both academic research and service provision with potential puzzles. While Sikh communities have been long settled in the UK, there is still a dearth of extensive, multi-method, and analytically rich research investigating the role of spirituality and Sikh identity. We present existing models of recovery process and locate them against an individual psychological and sociological backdrop, so that through the use of spirituality, recovery along this route is interpreted as having both otherworldly as well as materially grounded formations. It is this duality, we argue, that is prominent socially, culturally, and psychologically as important in the recovery from addiction. The multi-factorial nature of this mechanism of change raises important questions for not only addiction recovery, but also notions of continuity and change in Sikh identity. We aim to contribute to this growing body of work in order to re-situate the role of spirituality and identity in alcohol addiction recovery.
Highlights
IntroductionSikh communities in recovery from alcohol addiction
In this paper we aim to outline the significance of Sikh religious and spiritual frameworks used bySikh communities in recovery from alcohol addiction
One of the authors carried out in-depth qualitative research [1] and this paper resituates that research within the context of broader discussions of Sikh identity in spiritual frameworks
Summary
Sikh communities in recovery from alcohol addiction. One of the authors carried out in-depth qualitative research [1] and this paper resituates that research within the context of broader discussions of Sikh identity in spiritual frameworks. The importance of this is salient in a multicultural mental health care context as exists in the UK, and because how various minority communities perceive, manage, and sustain alcohol addiction becomes an emergent issue in the context of the changing landscape of mental health care in “austerity” Britain. While specific biomedical and psychological mainstream services have fairly explicit and obvious profiles, there are a range of “unofficial” alcohol addiction services that are maintained by communities themselves, through which so called “spontaneous” recovery takes place
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