This book steps outside traditional understandings of addictions and explores the potential of approaching them from a social perspective. Traditional approaches are dominated by what the book refers to as “particle” perspectives where the focus narrows down onto the person experiencing the addiction. A social perspective shifts from thinking in terms of particles to looking at the person in terms of relationships. People become, in many ways, defined by the array of connections that comprise their social world.  At one level, a person’s relationship to an addictive substance is seen to progressively strengthen at the cost of deteriorating relationships elsewhere. Accordingly, attempts at change involve reversing this process and gradually reintegrating fragmented relationships. At another level, the dominance of the addictive relationships has consequences for the more intense types of relationship we refer to as intimacy. The challenges of reintegration will involve supporting a process of productive interplay between intimates. At yet another level, relationships occur on a wider horizon involving networks of extended families, neighborhoods, workplaces and communities. See more