Current treatment policy is rooted primarily in either medical or psychological paradigms. These paradigms fail to recognize the social nature of drug addiction. Lacking in the literature is a sufficient theoretical or conceptual framework for a socially based treatment orientation. The present article provides a sociologically grounded framework, positing three analytically distinct social processes: 1) dissociation from the addict lifestyle and subculture, which involves the mechanisms of sacrifice, renunciation and investment; 2) association with the treatment program and its goals, which involves mechanisms of communion, mortification and transcendence; and 3) a reintegration process whereby the addict is mainstreamed into conventional society.
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