Personal identity loss, alcohol dependency and intervention

Davies, Yasmine, Hagan, Robert ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1184-229X and Goodwin, Peter ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6533-0949 (2024) Personal identity loss, alcohol dependency and intervention. Project Report. Manchester Metropolitan University.

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Abstract

What is the problem? Personal identity or individual identity ‘is not internal or asocial’ (Mclaughlin, 2012, p.30). It is in continual flux and change dependent on not only how the individual perceives themselves but also how society, as a collective and constructive power, chooses to ‘impose, destroy or erase [personal] identities’ (Pathak, 2017, p.118). For people living with alcohol dependency, the imposed identity of alcoholic, weak, dangerous and solely responsible for their dependency works to remove their status within society, rendering them invisible and their personal identity removed, due to an ‘acceptance of social discrimination’ (Kilian, et al., 2021 p. 909; Schomerus et al., 2011; Fukuyama, 2019). Therefore, people living with alcohol dependency comprise one of the most stigmatised groups (Schomerus et al., 2011).