Recovery Outlaw

Between the Liberty of Using and Quitting Drugs

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to reveal the features of drug addiction recovery in Japan based on the author's own experience with addiction and peer-support activities. It also presents the current situation in which the contemporary drug policies and the practical professional treatments for addiction have appropriated fruitful results of the addicts' self-help activities. In the 1960s and 1970s, deviant activities were often interpreted to be caused by social environments. However, their causes have been thought to be responsible for offenders today. The peersupport activities in the Drug Addiction Rehabilitation Centers（DARC）that were first established in Tokyo in 1985 were developed against the backdrop of the social climate changes with regard to deviance. The recovery program in DARC was effectively developed based on the idea that the very person who has the liberty of using drugs could also recover from drug addiction. This is because the recovery needs the addict's autonomy in order for it to be successful. Such autonomy develops through two phases―integration and differentiation―which occur in the process of the recovery. However, there has been a recent amendment of the law to control drug offenses to go along with the compulsory enforcement of the prevention programs. These factors have often been recognized as desirable measures for recovery from addiction, although they are likely to damage the essence of recovery and seize the productive results of addicts' self-help activities.