Music is My Whole Life - World Federation of Music Therapy

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Horesh, T. (2006) “Music is My Whole Life” - The many meanings of music in addicts’ lives. Music Therapy Today (Online) Vol.VII (2) 291-317. available at http://musictherapyworld.net NARRATIVE INTERVIEWS needs, telling me what they felt I wanted to hear? Or was I the first thera- pist actually interested in this aspect of their lives, which was, until now, just one more of their underground activities, not something one tended to share with their social worker? I put the question to one of my interviewees, who said : when you have one hour a week with your social worker, and your life is falling apart, you want to use drugs – you’re not going to talk to her about music. But that doesn’t mean its not a very important part of my life. I then decided to interview addicts that I personally knew, that had partic- ipated in my groups in the 2 therapeutic communities I worked in. It wasn’t difficult to choose: those clients that lingered in the room, after the group was over, to tell me about their passion for certain kinds of music; or expressed strong disinterest in any music but their own. All the people I approached in my request to interview them, agreed on the spot, even though I suggested that they take time to think about it. My feeling, strengthened by things said in the interviews, was that they saw the interview as a chance for personal attention from me (all our therapeutic work had been in groups), a chance to talk about, and gain deeper understanding of their relationship with music, and contribute to the understanding of people like them (many of them expressed surprise that the “university professors” were at all interested in this subject) My relationship with all interviewees, and knowledge of the culture of addiction and recovery, enabled a natural introduction into the data col- lecting stage of the research. I felt that our former mutual experiences, in the music therapy groups and other common activities in the therapeutic community’s life, made for a common language and relaxed atmosphere in all the interviews. Most of them, unavoidably, included discussions Choosing methodology 304
Horesh, T. (2006) “Music is My Whole Life” - The many meanings of music in addicts’ lives. Music Therapy Today (Online) Vol.VII (2) 291-317. available at http://musictherapyworld.net MUSIC LISTENING DURING DRUG USE which were beyond the scope of the interview’s objective, such as personal therapeutic and rehabilitation themes . My research orientation is situated on a junction where music therapy, popular music studies, sociology of music and psychology of music – and theories related to addiction - converge. I am presently analyzing the material gleaned from the 8 interviews. I would like to present some of my preliminary findings, according to the main categories I have found, with the relevant theoretical context. All the interviews were held in Hebrew. In translating the quotations from the interviews, some of the cultural aspects of slang and addiction jargon – were lost. I didn’t try to use the English equivalents of addiction jargon, which is so very typical of social class, geography and ethnicity. I hope that the authenticity of the quotations will be preserved even so. In order to better understand the context of the following quotations, I will again introduce my research subjects, this time through the prism of the substances they abused. • • • • • • • • Nahum: alcohol, cannabis and heroin Yonatan: ecstasy, L.S.D., cannabis, heroin and crack-cocaine Ruth: alcohol, ecstasy, L.S.D., cannabis, heroin and crack-cocaine Zohar: ecstasy, L.S.D. Yelena: alcohol, cannabis, heroin Sasha: heroin Dima: ecstasy, L.S.D., heroin Boris: occasional alcohol and ecstasy, heroin Results and Discussion From the narratives we can discern 3 general stages: Results and Discussion 305
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Music is My Whole Life - World Federation of Music Therapy

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