Recovery- and sobriety-support groups in a music community: An ethnographic study of Phish, the Phellowship, and the sensorium of sobriety

Abstract

Purpose/introductionThis article provides an ethnographic account of members of the Phellowship, a group of sober concert goers who connect and sometimes attend informal meetings at Phish concerts. The work attends to the ways this group is meaningful for people's sobriety and livelihoods. The overall purpose of this article is to provide a rich description of a novel approach to the creation and extension of a culture of recovery and sobriety through music and music communities. MethodsThis article utilizes two years of ethnographic data collected from interviews with roughly 20 participants and conversations from participant observation with people who are generally representative of the demographics of this group and fanbase (25–55, white, about half male and female presenting). The ethnographic data were physically coded into emergent themes and analyzed to highlight the important facets of participation and experience of members of the Phellowship. This method of qualitative analysis utilizes aspects of phenomenological inquiry, in that the subjective experiences of individuals are described and analyzed, to meet the larger aims of an ethnographic analysis that explicates the understandings and cultural practices of this community in their own words. ResultsThematic results include the performative and oral importance of narration at meetings, the semiotics of recovery and their community, the extension of sobriety beyond their “programs” or health-related arenas, and, most importantly, the role of connection and community. Each topic and result includes first-person accounts from interviews and participant observation to explicate how these thematic areas were chosen and have become meaningful for members of the Phellowship. DiscussionThis nonprogrammatic approach to recovery and sobriety that focuses more on cultural practices and salient versions of people's everyday identities, rather than “healing” and process seems to be a promising and novel addition to better the lives of people with substance use disorders. This group, and the network of these groups that exists in the jam band music scene at large, could act as a model for person-first approaches to recovery that incorporate different elements of sociality, community, and creative expression.