“Me, the street, and a backpack”: employment, income, and physical capital in rural recovery

ABSTRACT

Recovery capital is a framework for understanding individuals’ resources for recovery from substance misuse. In a qualitative analysis of rural individuals in recovery (N = 49), the role of physical capital emerged prominently across ten focus groups. Participants highlighted the effects of employment status, income, and other forms of physical capital directly, as well as indirect effects through changes in human capital. Negative cultural capital components, in the form of stigma and employment discrimination, were described as barriers to physical capital acquisition and successful recovery. Based on these findings, we discuss rural recovery challenges and propose a model of recovery capital interactions.

KEYWORDS:

• Employment
• income
• physical capital
• recovery capital
• rural recovery
• substance misuse

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the study participants for their volunteerism and forthright revelations, as well as Emily Becher for a review of data analysis.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.