Date of Award

1-1-2014

Document Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.

Organizational Unit

Morgridge College of Education

First Advisor

Patton O. Garriott, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Nicholas Cutforth

Third Advisor

Cynthia McRae

Fourth Advisor

Kimberly Bender

Keywords

Addiction, Distribution, Drug dealing, Drug world, Substance use

Abstract

Substance use regularly occurs among individuals that distribute drugs and there is a limited amount of research that has examined both use and distribution. A grounded theory approach was used to develop a framework for analyzing relationships between use and distribution behaviors. 15 participants (five female, 10 male) that had experience selling drugs and using drugs were recruited from a residential substance abuse treatment center. Each participant was interviewed for one hour with an interview protocol aligning with the stage of analysis. A model was developed to explain Involvement and Integration in a Drug World with the codes Substance Use, Lifestyle, Distribution, Decision-Making, and Social Relations. Themes identified include Multifaceted Integration, Failure by Use, Separation from Convention, Strategic Use, Degraded Character, and Accumulation of Non-support. Results inform the treatment of addiction, criminal and delinquent drug-related behaviors, and demonstrate potential for researching the co-occurrence of distribution and use in the field of psychology.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Evan Thomas Stanforth

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Format

application/pdf

Language

en

File Size

129 p.

Discipline

Counseling psychology

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