The proposed study will utilize public social service agency and institutional records, drug treatment records and followup interviews to investigate in detail the natural course of the addiction process in patients previously commmitted to the California Civil Addict Program (CAP). The study will represent a second followup of a sample previously interviewed in 1974/75. The study will enable a comprehensive and complete view of a period of 25 years in the natural history of the chronic opiate addict life cycle (from first narcotic use to the time of interview). The process of maturing out will be investigated in detail, focusing on those variables which support this process in conjunction with those which hinder it. Special emphasis will therefore be placed on psychological, environmental and sociocultural variables which support the maintenance as well as the cessation of addiction over the course of the addict career. Utilizing theoretical perspectives advanced for the maintenance and cessation of addiction, confirmatory approaches to predictive models will be tested for their relative validity. The major dependent variable in such models will be the maturing out of the addiction career as indicated not only by the cessation of compulsive narcotics use, but also as indicated by the presence of employment, satisfactory family or marital relationships, and the absence of criminal behavior and alcohol or other drug abuse. The results will also be examined to determine how the various treatment programs encountered by the subjects differentially change the course of the addict career. Additional analyses will include a categorization of addict types which will discriminate characteristics likely to be predictive of favorable responses to treatment, and/or predictive of early maturing out. The latter analysis will include a comprehensive investigation of a sample selected for showing successful completion of the CAP.
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