Maintaining Normative Functioning Alongside Drug Use: The Recognition of Harms and Adoption of Change Strategies

• Author: Moran Chassid-Segin,Keren Gueta,Natti Ronel
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X211049180
• Published date: 01 December 2022
• Date: 01 December 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X211049180

International Journal of

Offender Therapy and

Comparative Criminology

2022, Vol. 66(16) 1879 –1897

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/0306624X211049180

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Article

Maintaining Normative

Functioning Alongside Drug

Use: The Recognition of

Harms and Adoption of

Change Strategies

Moran Chassid-Segin1, Keren Gueta1,

and Natti Ronel1

Abstract

The current study examined drug users’ perspectives on strategies that helped them

to maintain normative functioning or resolve impaired functioning. We interviewed

29 drug users who described themselves as functioning normatively while using drugs

on a regular basis until they experienced harms or raised concerns of future harms.

The content analysis showed that the users maintain their normative functioning

through diverse strategies that can be located on a continuum. This continuum was

conceptualized as “normative functioning management” based on White et al.’s

concept of “recovery management.” This study found an ongoing continuum through

self-management and social interaction consisting of three regions: the management of

normative functioning, the recognition of the harm of drug use to functioning, and the

subsequent adoption of change strategies for maintaining normative functioning. This

continuum may provide a more nuanced theoretical understanding of the phenomenon

of drug users with normative functioning and is therefore relevant for counselors

encountering such users in their practice. This study highlights inner resources such

as self-awareness and social interaction that help functioning users to maintain their

normative functioning and fulfill basic obligations in their normal routines, that is,

preserving their professional status, family lives, and relationships.

Keywords

functioning users, drug normalization, change strategies, discursive strategies

1Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel

Corresponding Author:

Moran Chassid-Segin, Department of Criminology, Bar-Ilan University, Max and Anna Webb Street,

Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel.

Email: segin.m@gmail.com

1049180IJOXXX10.1177/0306624X211049180International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative CriminologyChassid-Segin et al.

research-article2021

1880 International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 66(16)

Introduction

Drug use has become more common among young people who present themselves as

people who perform well at work and within their families and social lives (Parker,

2005; Parker et al., 1998). This process of normalization, through which drug use has

become a normative and accepted behavior and a legal phenomenon (Hathaway et al.,

2016), helps these drug users to negotiate drug stigma and moral condemnation

(Hathaway et al., 2011; Pennay & Moore, 2010). Eleven states in the United States

have legalized cannabis since 2012 (Hall & Lynskey, 2020), and Canada recently

became the second country in the world to legalize the use of cannabis (Cox, 2018).

Israeli law has recently legislated partial changes in substance use with an amendment

to the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance, known as “non-discrimination,” which came into

effect on April 1, 2019 and turns one’s first possession and use offenses into adminis-

trative offenses and fines that do not lead to a criminal record (Chassid-Segin et al.,

2020).

Users who are able to use drugs while still maintaining their personal hygiene,

physical and mental health, and social relationships (Kerley et al., 2015) see them-

selves as functional users who are able to both use drugs and maintain control of their

lives (Copes, 2016). They try to adopt their drug use to their regular lives (Askew,

2016), to define their use of drugs, generally cannabis, and to neutralize their use in the

context of hard work and professional productivity on the one hand and their social

lives and leisure time on the other (Shiner, 2009). During the normalization process,

drug users who define themselves as functional actively resist stigma and draw on

larger cultural or subcultural stories to create a relevant outgroup. They must remain

vigilant about maintaining boundaries if they wish to avoid having low-status labels

(e.g., crackhead, junkie, or tweaker) attached to them. They do this by creating sym-

bolic boundaries which differentiate between their personal use and others. Shiner and

Newburn (1997) challenged the concept of normalization, arguing that it exaggerated

the level of acceptability in society, and suggested that drug users are ashamed of their

drug use and use techniques of neutralization.

Sykes and Matza (1957) described a set of “techniques of neutralization” (p.667)

that is, techniques that help to minimize responsibility for deviant behavior in order to

diminish or erase guilt (Kaptein & van Helvoort, 2019) used by juvenile offenders to

justify or excuse their delinquent behavior. These techniques include denial of respon-

sibility, denial of injury, denial of victims, condemnation of the condemners, and

appeal to higher loyalties. Askew (2016) suggested that drug users legitimize their use

and disclaim personal responsibility via techniques of neutralization and prioritize

their self-control and functioning (Askew, 2016; Lau et al., 2015). The current study

examines users’ awareness and recognition of the harm and potential harm to their

functioning despite their use of neutralization techniques. It explores the diverse strat-

egies employed by users to normalize their drug use and preserve their normative

functioning. The literature review focuses on the tension between studies on non-

problematic drug users who are able to maintain a normal lifestyle alongside drug use

without disrupting their normative functioning and problematic drug users who are not