Theory and Writing

Limits of Reason, Extensions of Self

Distributed Motivation and the Suspension of Reason in an Alcohol Dependence Support Group

"In Vie Libre meetings, the advice shared between members demonstrates an assumption that reason and deliberation can be a liability, that in the long struggle to attain and preserve abstinence, they cannot be counted on. As a regular moderator of meetings explained to the group, 'Me, I am terrified of having a drink, and I have no interest in convincing myself otherwise.' In this project [to abstain], the capacity to change one's mind - to convince oneself otherwise - is offset by structures that preserve and recall the motivation to abstain. Long-term participation in the group may therefore be considered a powerful and constituent part of the self that is being transformed or maintained. An understanding of motivation as a quality of individual mind would in this case obscure the very thing that makes it effective: that it is extended outward and distributed through others."

Freedom, Ethics and Self-Limitation

"Keeping a Fear in your Pocket": Ethical Strategies of Ex-Drinkers in Paris

"The continued practice of judgement is inescapable, but they strategically restrict it so as to avoid sliding back into a commitment to drinking that is imperialistic and, for them, seems to extinguish all further possibility. [...] By attempting to limit or forestall the inevitable call to judgement, to prolong their commitment to abstinence using the tools of fear, are these people – whom I admire and found so often to be lucid, serious, direct, ironic – in bad faith? Or, if this is done to avoid an even more radical limitation, the rigid and oppressive commensurability experienced in their alcohol dependence, are these protagonists acting with practical wisdom or courage? Finally, to have a stable point from which to explore these questions, and to observe the nesting or alternation of judgement and choice, do we require some more basic fundament – the prolongation of life itself, perhaps, or the possibility of having possibilities at all?"

Overlaps of Experience and Expertise

From Ex-Drinker to Expert: Experiential Knowledge Within and Without a Parisian Mutual-Aid Group

"As a condition that typically not only affects but is made knowable through the full breadth of a person's life, alcohol dependence is addressed across that same breadth by mutual aid groups. The experiential knowledge generated in their meetings may lead to expertise, but it is not obvious that this expertise can be readily abstracted from the group and applied elsewhere, despite its current valorization in policy and principle. As opportunities for collaboration and involvement increase, so too will grow the need for epistemic allowances, for acceptance that failures of recognition and exchange are to be expected, and for acknowledgement that what makes a good volunteer in one context may be confounded in the next."

Living with Concepts of Health and Self

Life with the Maladie Alcoolique: Conceptions of Drinking and Abstinence in a French Mutual-Aid Group
(Doctoral Dissertation)

A study of situated ethics and life with the concepts of dependence and abstinence, drawing on two years of fieldwork with a French mutual-aid group and a hospital addictions treatment team.

"Over my time with [Vie Libre], I saw that the long project of accepting one's maladie then attaining and maintaining abstinence was a matter of striking a balance between potentially conflicting feelings, understandings and possibilities, rather than one of conclusively embracing some and excising others. Even if it could no longer be consumed, alcohol remained something my interlocutors had to live with, one way or another. What's more, as [a group moderator] had said and as he and others would say again and again, the very freedom that was being reclaimed via abstinence could, in its exercise, call that abstinence into question and, if left unchecked, ultimately undo it."