Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, June 2007; 7(2): 71
78

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Creation as transformation: Parenting as a turning point in drug

users’ lives

KIM ETHERINGTON

Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol, UK

Abstract
This paper is drawn from a narrative inquiry into how ex-drug users understand the connection between childhood trauma and
their subsequent drug misuse. The research was commissioned by a community drugs project. Eight participants were selected
from respondents to an advertisement in a counselling journal, five of whom are qualified psychological therapists. The
particular focus of this paper is on the interconnection of childhood trauma/abuse, drug misuse and parenting, by showing
participants’ own experience of being parented and how the experience of becoming a parent helped them to transform their
relationship with drugs. The paper draws attention to the therapeutic value of recognising the complex contextual factors that
influence the parenting abilities of problematic drug users, and of building upon the positive attitudes, hopes, values and
capabilities that underscore the ‘good parenting’ found in their stories. The work suggests that drug rehabilitation, treatment
or counselling might usefully focus on parent
child relationships, which can become a turning point for identity
transformation.

Keywords: Abuse, childhood trauma, drug misuse, identity transformation, narrative inquiry, parenting

Introduction women’ (Marcenko et al., 2000, p. 316). This focus

Children of drug misusers are perceived to be among
the most at risk in our society, exposed as they may be
to physical and emotional neglect or harm, and a
whole range of poor developmental and social out-
comes (Barnard, 2005a; Barnard & McKeganey, 2004;
McKegany et al., 2002). Additionally, children of drug-
misusing parents are often caught up in the social
stigma attached to their parents, who are judged to be
morally reprehensible, not only because of their illegal
use of drugs, but also because of the behaviours they
adopt to fund their habits, and their deteriorating
physical appearance, health and lifestyles (Etherington
& Barnes, 2006).
Barnard (2005a, p. 2), in her research with drug-
using parents and their children, states: ‘In the public
mind problem drug use is incompatible with effective
parenting and is a key component of the stigma that
accrues.’
Most published research into the impact of sub-
stance misuse on parenting relates to women (Bailey
& McCloskey, 2005; Baker & Carson, 1999; Camp &
Finkelstein, 1997; Jarvis et al., 1998; Marcenko et al.,
2000), upon whom negative judgements fall heavily
(Klee, 2002), even to the extent that there have been
‘attempts to impose stronger legal penalties and to
control the reproductive rights of substance-using
on women attests to the taken-for-granted assump-
tion and largely unquestioned idea that the care and
welfare of children should be the responsibility of the
mother, rather than a shared task between both
parents. This idea not only increases the burden of
responsibility on mothers, but also ignores the emo-
tional, psychological and physical connection many
fathers have with their children. By ignoring these
factors, research might be reinforcing the idea that
little is expected of men, in terms of being a ‘good
father’, a role that is less well-defined that that of the
‘good mother’ in our society.
The idea that drug misuse is incompatible with
good parenting, for drug-misusing fathers and
mothers, may ignore the complex contextual and
developmental factors that can clearly be seen in the
lives of participants in my current study, a life story
research project that conceptually integrates the
relationships between childhood trauma, drug misuse
and parenting, and thereby creates knowledge to
guide integrated interventions for this client group.
The narrative inquiry from which the data for this
paper are drawn was commissioned by a UK com-
munity drugs project that provides counselling for
abuse/trauma survivors in recognition of the fre-
quency of those histories among service users. Here

Correspondence: Graduate School of Education, Counselling Programmes, 8
10 Berkley Square, Clifton, Bristol BS8 1HH, UK. E-mail:
kim.etherington@bris.ac.uk

1473-3145 (print)/1746-1405 (online) – 2007 British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy
DOI: 10.1080/14733140701340001
72 K. Etherington
What does this study explore?
. How the experience of becoming a parent
helped three former addicts to transform
their relationship with drugs
I present data gathered through listening to the
stories of three of my eight participants. John, Becky
and Josie (pseudonyms) responded to an advertise-
ment in a counselling journal asking for ‘stories from
people who have linked their history of problematic
drug use with their experiences of childhood trauma’.
John offered his story when his counsellor told him
about my study and Becky and Josie are both trained
as counsellors.
Conversational interviews were held with all parti-
cipants, who were sent transcripts and invited to
comment on the work at each stage. John was the
only participant to request no further contact after
checking the transcript. Further telephone and e-mail
conversations with other participants, to fill in gaps in
my understanding, have enabled us to co-construct
their stories and ensure their on-going consent to
each publication that has ensued.
Although stories of parenting were not actively
sought, because parenting was central to their lives,
interests and values, those stories emerged to provide
rich information on the complex and contingent
nature of parenting while using drugs. The parenting
aspect of those stories is therefore the focus of this
article. Other themes
which include (but are not
limited to) the inter-relationship between alcohol use
and drug use, the inter-generational transmission of
trauma, the impact of trauma on identity construc-
tion, and the process of identity transformation
can
be found in Etherington (2007), alongside issues
related to conducting life story research.
Childhood trauma, impact and coping
The range of negative outcomes associated with
childhood sexual and physical abuse has now been
acknowledged (Bailey & McCloskey, 2005; Gold,
2000; van der Kolk, 1996). However, emotional abuse
and neglect, lack of responsiveness towards a child or
traumatic loss are often more difficult to recognise,
seeming to be less dramatic or obviously traumatic.
Nevertheless, what might be judged culturally as
‘normal’ occurrences can accumulate over a pro-
longed period and lead to the creation of ‘a passively
traumatic environment’ (Meares, 2000, p. 122).
One well-researched consequence of childhood
trauma, especially abuse that occurs within trusting
relationships, is a profound impact on the child’s sense
of self, which is said to come into being ‘through the
child developing secure attachment to his or her
caregivers, who have provided appropriate respon-
siveness’ (Meares, 2000, p. 29). So unprocessed
childhood trauma, when carried into adulthood, can
disrupt a person’s ability to form secure attachments

even with their own children (Bowlby, 1969, 1973).
A person may cope by disconnecting from aspects
of trauma which may threaten to overwhelm them
when triggered in their current lives, and lead to their
use of drugs as a means of escaping such distress.
Childhood trauma, substance misuse and
parenting
Associations between childhood trauma/abuse and
later substance misuse have long been recognised
by drugs workers, who have increasingly noted
those histories among their clients (Wilson, 1998),
and seen how sexual and physical abuse and neglect
in childhood can lead a person to turn to drugs and
alcohol (Griffiths, 1998; Lubit et al., 2003; Marcenko
et al., 2000; Najavits et al., 1997; Porter, 1994;
Ravndal et al., 2001; Zickler, 2002). Research has
also shown that sexual abuse is linked with the
severity of drug misuse, which in turn is linked with
a higher prevalence of children being taken into care
(Marcenko et al., 2000).
Children living with drug-misusing parents can be
exposed to violence, physical abuse, criminal beha-
viour and family breakdown (McKegany et al., 2002),
and those who attempt to escape from parenting that
is doubly compromised by the effects of childhood
trauma/abuse and substance misuse can be exposed
to greater risk of trauma (O’Donoghue & Elliot, 1992;
Rounsaville et al., 1982).
Parents who are misusing drugs may become more
preoccupied with obtaining and using drugs than
with caring for their children. Money might be used
for drugs that would otherwise be available for
clothing, food or other necessities; their availability
as parents might be compromised; and their health
and emotional stability deteriorates with long-term
drug misuse. It seems clear therefore that drug misuse
can seriously affect parenting practices and responsi-
bilities on a daily basis (Barnard, 2005a, 2005b).
Adults whose capability to form loving attachments
or bonds has been impacted by trauma/abuse some-
times struggle to create or sustain the kind of
closeness and intimacy needed by their own children.
Such parents are sometimes described as distant,
unaffectionate or ‘not there’. Substance misuse may
reinforce this experience for children whose parents
are ‘spaced out’, ‘sleeping it off’ or ‘stoned’.
However, although parenting can clearly be af-
fected negatively by substance misuse, drug-misusing
parents report that they love their children, value their
parenting role and feel guilty if they fail to meet their
own standards of parenting and their children’s
expectations (Baker & Carson, 1999; Kearney et al.,
1994; Luthar & Walsh, 1995; Pursley-Cotteau & Stern,
1996). A growing body of research indicates that
the parenting attitudes and capabilities of drug-
misusing women are similar to those of non-using
women whose lives have been shaped by similar
circumstances, such as poverty, oppression and abuse

(Camp & Finkelstein, 1997; Luthar & Walsh, 1995;
Marcenko & Spence, 1995).
In a study of substance-using mothers with a history
of childhood abuse, Marcenko et al. (2000) found
that women who had experienced sexual abuse
scored significantly higher on a parenting scale,
particularly in areas related to empathy and role
reversal, indicating that sexual abuse may create a
greater empathy with children and a clearer under-
standing of the demarcation between the roles of
parent and child. Baker and Carson (1999) also report
that substance-abusing women, while acknowledging
how their lifestyle has negatively impacted on their
children, gave details of practices that illustrated they
felt capable as parents.
It would appear from previous research that while
the stereotype of the drug-misusing parent may not
fit every case, severe drug misuse does compromise
and undermine a person’s capacity for ‘good enough’
parenting, depending on the severity of drug misuse
and the stage in recovery or relapse (Marcenko et al.,
2000). It seems important, therefore, to separate out
drug-misusing parents’ capacity for ‘good enough
parenting’ and their current practices as parents. The
totalising identity of ‘addict’, ‘junkie’ or ‘druggie’ can
obliterate hope and deny a person’s agency in their
recovery.
Turning points
In the stories below I present sections of three life
stories that show how the creation of a child became a
‘turning point’, when the person experienced a major
change in his/her attitudes to drug misusing. These
turning points have been described as ‘rock bottom’
experiences, ‘existential crises’ (Biernacki, 1986) or
‘epiphanies’
‘ times that alter and shape the mean-
ings persons give to themselves and their life projects’
(Denzin, 1994, p. 510). At this time a person has a
heightened awareness of the values that are most dear
to them, either reclaimed from before their drug using
or newly emerging at a different stage of life.
Turning points may be linked to ‘outside’ events in
a person’s life which, if accompanied by a change
‘inside’ the person
‘a new belief, new courage,
moral disgust, ‘‘having had enough’’’ (Bruner, 1994,
p. 50)
provide an opportunity for a ‘second chance’.
In the stories below, the parents wanted something
better for their children than they had had for
themselves, and this desire provided the motivation
for change.
Stories of parenting
The narratives offered by participants in my study (ex-
drug users) were less likely to be influenced by stigma,
shame and denial than those of current drug misusers
because these participants had each reached a point
in their lives when they were able to admit, and take
responsibility for, their past parenting behaviours. This
Creation as transformation 73
does not represent a claim to greater ‘truth’ than
stories gathered from people currently misusing
drugs; rather, they had less need to defend them-
selves psychologically, having experienced a changed
sense of self and identity over the passage of time
(Barnard, 2005a).
My intention is to re-present parts of the stories of
these three people as knowledge constructions in
their own right, inviting the reader to hold in mind the
theories and literature described so far. The depth of
exploration permitted by using three stories balances
the potential limitation: in isolation, each story may
not count for much, but alongside similar stories
gathered in my own inquiry (two further parenting
stories), as well those of others (Barnard, 2005a;
Barnard & McKeganey, 2004; Marcenko et al., 2000;
McKeganey et al., 2002), they provide rich and multi-
layered learning.
I re-present below edited parts of John, Josie and
Becky’s stories. These relate, first, their own experi-
ences of being parented, and second, their parenting
of their own children, showing their rich insight into
their parenting behaviours, attitudes, feelings,
thoughts, intentions and values, and how behaviour
that could be construed as ‘a failure in parenting’ can
be viewed differently when the underlying intentions
are recognised.
Although research has shown that people can (and
do) recover from substance misuse without formal
treatment (Biernacki, 1986), John and Becky did accept
offers of treatment and rehabilitation (as did one other
in my sample of eight): Josie simply stopped using
drugs and went into counselling later.
John’s story
John’s ‘career’ of substance abuse had begun with
alcohol and solvent sniffing around the age of 13 and
progressed to a ‘big problem’ with amphetamines,
speed, acid, methadone and heroin. His own child-
hood had been spent in London, living a ‘hippy’
lifestyle with his drug-using mother during the 1970s
when ‘dope was like air-freshener’ in their home.
John was physically and emotionally neglected, and
exposed to sexual abuse and violence. He had no
model of good parenting upon which to draw, his
father being absent and his mother seeming to be
more interested in boyfriends, alcohol and dope than
her only child:
My mum used to go to the pub and when she’d
come back, nine times out of ten I’d have wet
myself, you know. Even if I had diarrhoea I wouldn’t
use the toilet outside ‘cos there was a mad bloke
who lived in the bottom [flat]
scary really. The key
was left in the door, but I wouldn’t go down and
use it.
He told me about the first time he remembered
meeting his father:
74 K. Etherington
I was starting a three-and-a-half-year sentence for
robbery, and he’d just finished an eight-year
sentence for robbery. . . . He came in to see me
and brought me a bit of dope.
At the age of seven John was raped by a stranger
when out playing:
I’d hurt myself and was outside crying by a wall and
a guy pulled up in a van and . . . I got in. I didn’t
know any better really. Maybe if my mum hadn’t
been drinking and using drugs I’d have been better
looked after and not out on the streets in London at
the age of seven with a key tied round my neck.
John had difficulty forming intimate trusting relation-
ships but eventually he tried to settle down with a
woman who also misused drugs.
A lot went on in that relationship. Yeah, we lost a
little boy. She had to have him induced but he was
fully formed. . . . I was there right until she actually
gave birth. But, um, it was quite traumatic. And
then, when she was having our daughter I was
really worried that this was going to happen again.
But it didn’t, you know.
I wanted to be there for my daughter in a way that
my parents had never been there for me. I did try
my hardest but . . . drugs . . . it just wasn’t happen-
ing really.
I wasn’t happy in the relationship. I wanted to be
with my daughter, but I didn’t want to be with her
mother, and the only way I could be with Jenny was
to stay with her mother. So I was stuck really, and
that was fuelling my drinking and using.
Earlier in the story I had asked John how he had coped
with the traumatic events in his life, and he told me he
coped because of his attitude of indifference:
. . . not caring . . . being laid back . . . got me
through. . . . I didn’t give a shit about much really,
until my kids came along. It was a chance for
me . . . to make a difference, and make sure [my
daughter] got the attention I never got, that she
got everything I didn’t get . . . that she was looked
after and kept safe. And even that had fallen to
pieces by then.
Jenny’s mother had taken her away and refused to tell
John where she was:
It was like someone had torn a bit of my heart out
and I just had a big hole and I was trying to fill with
drugs and alcohol, but it wouldn’t take the feelings
away. That’s when I knew I had to start dealing with
things, because the drugs and alcohol weren’t
taking the feelings away. . . . That’s when I started
getting better. I went into treatment in the end, and
er while I was in treatment, erm . . . a social worker
told me that her mother had been pulling clumps of
Jenny’s hair out and smacking her, and that
devastated me. Because at the end of the day I’d
thought: ‘At least she’s safe, she’s with her mum.’
I’d got to about two years clean then I had to go to
court and, er . . . she had been fostered for quite a
while, then she was adopted. I could have fought to
get her back, you know. But I wanted what was best
for her and, as hard as it was, I thought: Look,
maybe it’s better she goes for adoption. . . . Luckily,
the adoptive family she went to were part of the
same family who fostered her. So she didn’t get too
much upset, which was good.
They wanted a fresh start, which I could under-
stand. . . . They didn’t want me popping up every
now and again and upsetting it. And I thought:
Well, that’s fair enough. If that’s what needs to be
done to give her . . . a better life . . . then, I’ll have to
sit with that. Well, if I’d gone into court and kept
battling away to have her with me it would have
been for selfish reasons. . . . I had one final visit
when she was seven. She’s 13, 14 this year.
Josie’s story
Josie was 31 at the time of our meeting and her
stories told of how her life and identity had been
shaped by her heavy and daily use of cannabis, her
intermittent use of ‘magic mushrooms’ and her role
as a cannabis dealer. Rebecca was born when Josie
was 17.
For a long time Josie had viewed her father leaving
home as the cause of her problems, but now she can
see that it was more complex than that. However, she
described with tears in her eyes a ‘self-defining
memory’, described by Singer (2004) as a ‘highly
significant, personal memory that express[es] central
themes or conflicts of one’s sense of identity’ (p 195):
I was about six: It was quite sunny, and my dad was
washing the car and I was stood watching, and
feeling, ‘I really want to love you but I’m not
allowed, so I’ll just stand here and watch you.’
There was a feeling of not wanting to leave my dad,
even before he left, not wanting to go away from
him in case he went.
My dad was saying, ‘I’m going to the shop. Do you
want to come?’ and me really wanting to go with
him. And then, seeing my mother and thinking, ‘Oh
my god, I can’t go with him because I’m going to
have to leave her, but if I stay with her then he’s
going to go without me,’ and just being completely
paralysed. The feeling of that memory is like my life
was, you know, I had to choose, and whatever I did
I was going to lose.

Later in her story she described her father’s depar-
ture from the family home, when she was eight years
old:
Me and my brother were at a party, and my mum
said, ‘When we get home Dad’s going to live in
Germany.’ And that’s all I remember her saying.
And when we got home the car was packed.
I don’t even remember saying goodbye. The feeling
I get when I go back to that memory is of being
paralysed and rooted there, and watching him drive
away off the edge of the world really. It was like
he’d gone to the moon. And thinking, ‘He’s gone
because of my mum and I can’t change it.’ And I
just couldn’t make sense of it.
That was the end of my childhood really, when he
left, and I just spent from eight till about 14 feeling
like I could not communicate with anyone. From
when I was about 11 or 12 it was like I had a tape
going in my head all the time: ‘My dad left and
doesn’t love me. My mum doesn’t want me. My
step-dad hates me. I am stupid and horrible and no-
one likes me. I wish I was dead.’
And then I’d drink and I was totally different and
really popular as well: it was like I was just someone
else.
However, alcohol made her ill, and after a warning
from her GP, she discovered that cannabis could also
help ‘switch off the tapes’ in her head.
Josie became entrenched in a drug-using subcul-
ture when she found a group of young people with
whom she could identify. She lived in a bender (tent)
with a group of men, seeking affection from them:
she became pregnant at the age of 17:
It was kind of rock bottom from one point of view
because, in my head, I started to think, what can I
do to sort this out? The baby gave me a conscious
reason to sort myself out.
My father was really pressing for me to have an
abortion, and then later, for me to give up the baby
when she was born. My mum was washing her
hands of me, saying, ‘Well, you can have the baby,
but I don’t want you living here, you have to do it
on your own.’
But it was too important for me to sabotage, the
way that I had sabotaged everything else I’d
wanted. . . . I’ve always been really aware of chil-
dren, and how they suffer, and it’s always been
really important to me that I don’t knowingly do
anything to cause harm to a child.
After Rebecca’s birth, without a stable base, and with
the additional responsibilities of single parenthood,
Creation as transformation 75
she returned to her drug-using friends and was soon
using drugs again. When her friends began to use
heroin, sometimes in the same room as her baby, she
realised that she needed to remove Rebecca from that
environment. She eventually gave up using cannabis
for good:
I remember getting up one day and watching
myself take over an hour to get my drink and
thinking, this is ridiculous, how do I think I can be a
good mother if I’m like this, and I just stopped.
After stopping using cannabis Josie became over-
whelmed by distressing feelings related to her child-
hood, and without a means to escape them, she
slashed at her arms, causing deep wounds.
I was quite scared that maybe I was worse than I
thought I was, and I didn’t want to be left in a
situation where I was doing something awful with
Rebecca.
I never went back onto cannabis. After I’d cut
myself I was worried about too much emotion
coming up and not being able to manage it, so I
started using alcohol, medicinally, to wean myself
off drugs.
Josie went on to form a four-year relationship with
someone she believed would provide a stable home
life for herself and Rebecca, but she left that relation-
ship when she realised she was compromising her
deeply held beliefs about good parenting:
I felt forced by him to parent in a way that I wasn’t
comfortable with. I always knew that I wouldn’t be
the ideal parent because of what I was struggling
with, but I knew that I could do my best in the
circumstances at the time, and I always did, apart
from a few times with him. I’ve always believed that
adults should never use their power over children;
that children’s voices should be heard. I allowed
that to be compromised.
Rebecca used to get up in the night and get in my
bed and he said I should shut her in her room, so I
did. And that was just horrendous, she cried for
hours, and then in the morning she said, ‘I’m sorry
for being bad last night.’ She never got up again.
She’d decided that she was bad, and it wasn’t her
being bad at all.
Josie has tried to make amends for that behaviour:
Recently I talked to her about that. I said, ‘You were
too little and it’s obviously not your fault that I shut
you in the room.’ I can explain to her that children
don’t understand things and they just think, ‘If
mummy’s cross it must be my fault.’
76 K. Etherington
What does this study tell us?
. The therapeutic value of recognising the
complex factors that influence the parenting
abilities of problematic drug users
. The importance of building upon the positive
attitudes, hopes, values and capabilities
found in their stories
. That counselling might usefully focus on
parent
child relationships, which can be-
come a turning point for identity transforma-
tion
Becky’s story
Becky spent her first four years in her family home
where her alcoholic father was verbally and physically
abusive to her mother and brother. At the age of four
Becky’s mother sent her to live with her own mother,
but Nan’s household had its own problems: eight of
her adult children had been sectioned under the
Mental Health Act.
Becky longed for closeness and hugs from her
mother, who she experienced as ‘shut down’ and
‘distant’. Later in the story Becky explained that she
now understands her mother’s inability to offer close-
ness as a consequence of her having been sexually
abused by her father as a child, along with her siblings.
Living with Nan and an ‘alcoholic schizophrenic
uncle’ meant Becky had to ‘carry a lot of secrets’ and
‘fine tune’ herself to the atmosphere in that house-
hold. As she grew into adolescence she rarely saw her
parents, who by then were divorced. Her brother had
emigrated. She began to move from group to group,
seeking attachment and affection from boys, identify-
ing with a drug subculture which offered her a social
identity during a period when she lacked a more
satisfying one (Etherington, 2006).
She was introduced to drugs and alcohol within this
group and became pregnant at 14, which led to a
traumatising experience of abortion. After being
expelled from school at 15 she moved in with
Michael, a violent man, with whom she had a child.
Their drug misuse was out of control and her
shoplifting increased in order to ‘put the drug money
on the table’. She was terrified of Michael, who
stamped on her stomach while she was pregnant, and
having managed to leave him during the pregnancy
she returned to live with him again after the birth of
Jamie. Michael had begun to use heroin during her
absence and she soon followed suit.
She felt increasingly worthless, and became more
and more isolated. She had naively thought she would
not become addicted, something she could eventually
no longer deny. At this point, a sense of conflict
emerged between her ‘addict’ identity and her
preferred identity as ‘mother’, causing her to review
her behaviour and sense of self dramatically:
I’d take Jamie with me to . . . all these like . . . dirty
dealers, you know? Ugh . . . not on my wave-
length . . . and a couple of months later you’re
licking her ass because you know you’ve got to
score. . . . Mostly it was really lonely . . . just feeling
guilt and shame around Jamie. . . . I just felt bad
because I had a child. I was a woman, a mother, a
drug addict . . . um.
Becky became involved in the criminal justice system,
which led to 12 weeks of primary treatment while
Jamie was left in the care of an aunt. When she was
offered secondary care, her aunt refused to continue
caring for Jamie. Becky now views that as ‘the best
thing that could have happened’, because she was
offered a place at one of only two mother and baby
units in Britain at that time. That environment
supported and prioritised her identity as ‘mother’,
which provided the leverage for her recovery.
Discovering there were other mothers addicted to
heroin helped reduced her sense of stigma and
shame. Jamie had his own development worker while
she had access to parenting and life skills training;
individual and group counselling helped her build a
sense of self worth and helped her recognise the links
between her early trauma and her drug-using beha-
viour.
Becky’s stories changed at this point to include her
dreams, expectations and hopes. The person who had
referred her for treatment was a probation officer,
who disclosed that he was himself in recovery,
allowing her to imagine the possibility of a new life
for herself. This was another major turning point:
He was the first person who said, ‘Do you want
help?’ Rather than, ‘You’re scum!’ He was the first
person who’d empathised with me and made me
believe I could do it.
From when I first started seeing that guy I’d say,
‘I want to be a probation officer.’ I had that dream.
I’d been cleaning people’s houses and working as a
waitress because I didn’t want to be out at work
before Jamie went to school. And I got to the point
where I thought: You know what? I’m worth more
than this . . .
Even when I was using . . . I didn’t want Jamie
brought up by my Nan, or his Nana like I was: that
was important. I didn’t want to predispose him to
drug use, because I knew that by the age of 10 or 11
he would be an addict himself. . . . He didn’t have a
choice of parents, just like I didn’t. I couldn’t live with
the guilt and shame of that
he deserves better.
I’d say 100%
if I hadn’t had Jamie I wouldn’t have
got into recovery at the age of 20. I just wouldn’t
have been entertaining the idea of a life without
drugs or alcohol now.

Discussion
In line with the findings of Barnard (2007), Klee
(2002), Camp and Finkelstein (1997) and McKegany
et al. (2002), these stories show how a drug-misusing
lifestyle impacts negatively on children, and the
distress caused to parents whose parenting behaviour
is dissonant with their parenting values, which can
become a lever for transformation when accessed and
built upon.
The stories above challenge the stereotype of drug
misuse by a parent as being incompatible with
effective parenting, and challenge the notion of
what constitutes ‘good parenting’ in our society. For
John, being a good parent entailed recognising that
he was incapable of offering his child what she
needed and giving her up for adoption; for Becky
being a good parent meant recognising that she
needed to create an environment in which her child
would have a better chance of growing up without
drugs than she had had; and for Josie it meant
prioritising her values about caring for her child over
the security of being in a relationship.
Each of the storytellers demonstrates an ability to
empathise with the child’s needs and to delineate
between the role of child and adult
which
reinforces a finding that surprised Marcenko et al.
(2000) in their study of drug-using women who had
been traumatised in childhood. As well as showing
the degree of thoughtfulness and concern of these
three individuals towards their children, the stories
here also highlight the life experiences that drove
their behaviours and impacted on their ability to
parent their children. Other studies have had similar
findings (Baker & Carson, 1999; Marcenko et al.,
2000).
Becky was the only parent to be offered parenting
and life skills training as part of a recovery pro-
gramme. Even though research has shown the
benefits of parenting training in residential substance
abuse treatment (Baker & Carson, 1999; Camp &
Finkelstein, 1997), parents are rarely offered rehabi-
litation programmes that include their children (Clark,
2005). The centre where Becky was cared for no
longer admits mothers with their children.
While this paper is limited to the parents’ stories

unlike Barnard’s recent work which offers both
parents’ and children’s stories (Barnard, 2005b,
2007)
the links these storytellers make between
their experiences of being parented by troubled
parents and their own beliefs and values about
parenting invite a new perspective.
However, simply recognising and building on the
attitudes and capabilities needed for good parenting
might not be enough to enable people to quit using
drugs. There are also potential links to be made
between childhood trauma, drug misuse and parent-
ing, and the impact of unprocessed trauma on a
person’s sense of identity (Herman, 1992; Lubit et al.,
2003; Meares, 2000) and behaviour as a parent
Creation as transformation 77
(Anderson, 1998; Koski-Jannes, 2002; O’Connor,
2005; Walters, 1996).
Several studies have suggested that drug misusers
can be helped by narrating their life stories in ways
that focus on and enable the reconstruction of
identity (McIntosh & McKeganey, 2000a, 2000b).
My study suggests that fundamental change in
drug-using behaviour
which may not be sufficiently
motivated by external demands on the person
has a
good chance of success when the person is motivated
by a desire to adopt an identity as ‘parent’.
My hope is that by listening to life stories from a
position of respectful curiosity and inquiry, and with
understanding of the interconnections between
childhood trauma, drug misuse and parenting,
workers could extend empathy and compassion,
rather than judgement and condemnation (Barnard,
2005a), while also keeping in mind the needs of
drug misusers’ children. From this position workers
can facilitate the narrating of life stories that include
parents’ strengths and capabilities, alongside recog-
nition and acknowledgment of the consequences
for themselves (when they were children), and for
their own children, of inadequate care and protec-
tion
all of which would require a tricky balancing
act.
Acknowledgements
My thanks to John, Josie and Becky for allowing me to
use their stories. This work is supported by the
European Social Fund and was commissioned by the
Southmead Drugs Project in Bristol, UK.
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