Rituals of Trust to Counteract Double Legacies of Deceit and Denial among Recovering Drug Addicts in Post-Soviet Hungary: An Experience Report

Abstract

This experience report draws from participation in and observation of life in a professionally-based residential treatment center for substance abusers in Hungary by its cultural anthropologist and psychiatrist co-authors. Our primary focus is on a set of rituals aimed at instilling and sustaining trust among the recovering addict members of this community. These rituals, we believe, are crucial components in processes combating the deleterious effects of the dual socialization these women and men have experienced both as addicts and as citizens of a nation scarred by decades of political oppression. Consequently, they enter the community double burdened with behavioral repertoires heavy with distrust, deceit, and denial incompatible with the trust and mutual support necessary for the community’s paramount self-help project aimed at providing substance abusers with sober and life sustaining ways of acting, thinking, and feeling.