Turning points have been known to reverse the downward spiral of alcoholism and its concomitant associations with divorce, depression, and work-related difficulties. In this study, the authors present the stories of 3 women from the Mills Longitudinal Study who were alcoholic. Using a narrative approach, the authors tracked the women’s developmental gains during recovery using Erik Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development, specifically focusing on the tasks of identity, intimacy, and generativity. Results show that despite similar personal problems and turning points that moved them to stop drinking, each woman followed a different path to self-reconstruction and psychological growth. These accounts offer important information about individual differences in recovery from alcoholism, which are often lost in larger aggregate accounts of personal change.
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