Om konsten att vara anhörig - en kvalitativ studie om att vara anhörig till en person som missbrukar

Abstract Authors: Nina Niemelä and Christian Persson Title: About the art of being a relative – a qualitative research about being the relative of a person who is abusing drugs Supervisor: Lars Harrysson This study is written as an attempt to shed light on the relatives to people who are abusing drugs or alcohol. We have aimed to explain and research how the relatives are effected by and handle their lives when a close relative or spouse has developed an addiction to alcohol and/or drugs. Doing a qualitative study we have used Internet forums and a total of 85 separately written messages by a total of 69 different people as the material for our analysis. This material has been coded to bring out the essential details that we needed for the analysis. By using the coping theory and the social constructive perspective we have managed to explain how the relatives of persons who is abusing drugs or alcohol experiences their situation as well as how they handle, cope, with it. Our findings tells us that relatives to persons who is abusing drugs are feeling a lot of emotional distress and handle the situation by using mostly emotional coping methods. The Internet forums act as a way of social support which we see as a positive factor for the relatives. Keywords: relatives, alcohol and drug abuse, coping, social constructionis