Robert Granfield

University at Buffalo, The State University of New York | SUNY Buffalo · Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and Department of Sociology

Background: Researchers have developed several instruments to measure recovery capital-the social, physical, human, and cultural resources that help people resolve alcohol and other drug problems. However, existing measures are hampered by theoretical and psychometric weaknesses. The current study reports on process and psychometric outcomes for t...

Explanations of altruism remain fragmented across disciplinary lines and focus heavily on phenomena such as philanthropy, the nonprofit sector, and volunteering outside the workplace. Yet numerous professions, including law, claim a duty of service that calls on their members to volunteer. Using a mixed methods approach that draws on thirty intervi...

The principle and practice of pro bono, or volunteer legal services for the poor and other marginalized groups, is an increasingly important feature of justice systems around the world. Pro bono initiatives now exist in more than eighty countries – including Colombia, Portugal, Nigeria, and Singapore – and the list keeps growing. Covering the sprea...

The principle and practice of pro bono, or volunteer legal services for the poor and other marginalized groups, is an increasingly important feature of justice systems around the world. Pro bono initiatives now exist in more than eighty countries – including Colombia, Portugal, Nigeria, and Singapore – and the list keeps growing. Covering the sprea...

Background Item specification is foundational to measurement development but rarely reported in depth. We address this gap by explicating our use of qualitative methods to ground and develop items for a new recovery capital measure, the Multidimensional Inventory of Recovery Capital. Method We recruited a diverse sample of service providers (n = 9...

The legal profession claims a duty of public service that calls on lawyers to volunteer their time through “pro bono” work (i.e., free legal service). And increasingly law firms strongly endorse pro bono and even remunerate time that is provided to clients without charge. But what happens when pro bono is mandated by the law firm, even compensated?...

This qualitative interview study explores barriers and facilitators to self-sufficiency among clients enrolled in HOPE: a transitional case-management program in Western New York that adapts the critical time intervention model to link justice-involved clients to medical and behavioral healthcare, housing, benefits, and social supports. In-depth qu...

Recovery capital is an important concept in the field of addiction studies. A person’s access to recovery capital can mean the difference between the termination of addiction and successful reintegration or ongoing criminality and drug use. Increasingly, religious institutions are playing a vital role in the provision of social services, including...

This paper examines the efforts of an alternative, Christian high school to reengage dropouts by building expressive relationships between teachers and students. An analysis of interview and observational data illuminates the nature and extent of students' reengagement, the quality of their attachments to instructors whom youths credit for their re...

This paper examines the efforts of an alternative, Christian high school to reengage dropouts by building expressive relationships between teachers and students. An analysis of interview and observational data illuminates the nature and extent of students’ reengagement, the quality of their attachments to instructors whom youths credit for their re...

This article examines a community's reaction to the poaching of a large elk. Extending the Durkheimian approach to nature, crime, law, and social control, this study discusses the anguish and anger provoked by the infraction, tributes to the fallen animal, calls for more severe and certain sanctions for poaching, and the boundaries affirmed in the...

In chapter 3, Robert Granfield and Philip Veliz gather lawyers’ reflections on their mandatory pro bono experiences in law school. The data for this chapter are based on a survey of 474 graduates of three law schools that were in the process of implementing mandatory pro bono requirements for graduation in the 1990s. The study found significant dif...

Essentialist views reporting the existence of distinct gender differences have received much criticism. Despite these critiques, there is little empirical research on the limitations of these approaches in institutions such as law schools. While studies of legal education have been informed by gender difference theory, few have sought to contextual...

In order to capture key personal and social resources individuals are able to access in their efforts to overcome substance misuse, we introduced the construct of recovery capital into the literature. The purpose of this paper is to further explore the construct and include discussions of implications unexplored in our previous writings. In this pa...

The legal profession's commitment to the expansion of pro bono has achieved significant gains in recent years. In practice, law schools seem relatively flexible in what constitutes pro bono work, accepting assignments that are more closely related to public service such as teaching or legal work for non-profit civic organizations not specifically a...

At a time when higher education is undergoing great challenges and diminished public support, the civically engaged university holds the promise of reclaiming the meaning and the purpose of higher education, where contributions toward promoting democratic public life through research and education become central institutional priorities. The civica...

Recent data on lawyer participation in pro bono have suggested that such work flows from the intrinsic value one derives from volunteering as well as from workplace characteristics of those who provide pro bono service. This finding would imply that pro bono emerges not merely from individual per- sonality traits but that the workplace environment...

Without Abstract

This article investigates the impact of an intervention designed to reduce alcohol use among students attending a university in the western United States. After reviewing the literature on the impact of this type of intervention elsewhere, this article describes the development and implementation of the intervention under investigation. Baseline da...

Over the years, alcohol researchers within the Kettil Bruun Society have sought to articulate broad-based theoretical propositions regarding the social and cultural foundations of addiction that challenge biological reductionism. While the disease concept of addiction has reigned supreme over the years to the point that it is now hegemonic in that...

This paper examines the impact of a six-month social norms marketing intervention designed to reduce alcohol use among students attending a small, private university. Analyses of baseline and follow-up data are presented as well as data dosage and saturation levels of the norm marketing campaign and on student reactions to the social norm marketing...

This paper explores the social context of "natural recovery" from problems associated with the misuse of intoxicants. Using data collected from in-depth interviews with 46 former alcohol- and drug-dependent persons, this paper examines how the social capital that these respondents had accumulated prior to their addiction and maintained during it ai...

The literature on cessation of drug and alcohol dependency without benefit of treatment or participation in self-help groups spans nearly forty years. While this literature is substantial and analyses of the processes of natural recovery well-developed, discussions directed at treatment providers around the value of these analyses for practice has...

Acknowledgments Introduction Part One: Not Just Another Addiction: The Role of Institutions 1. Codependency, Addiction Treatment, and the Therapeutic Ethos 2. In Search of the Recovery "Industry" 3. Uncoupling and Narratives of the Self 4. The Institution "Lite" Part Two: Codependency as Narrative Strategy: The Role of Culture 5. Codependency as a...

Despite the widely accepted view that formal treatment and twelve-step groups are essential for overcoming dependencies on alcohol and drugs, each year large numbers of former addicts quietly recover on their own, without any formal treatment or participation in self-help groups at all. Coming Clean explores the untold stories of untreated addicts...

Much of what is known about natural recovery or self-change without treatment from alcohol and drug problems comes from general population studies or special sampling from sources other than treatment centers. In this chapter studies from large-scale population surveys and community studies as well as those from smaller samples obtained by advertis...

Whether the topic is addictive behavior, infections or fractures, the traditional view of treatment in a medical model is that it addresses the cause of the disorder and either returns the person to normal functioning or helps the individual achieve a reasonable accommodation to a disability. For treatment of withdrawal Symptoms, the medical model...

This book and the literature it reviews show the broad range and impressive development of research into the self-change process over the past decade. In particular, general population studies have shown that self-change is a major pathway to recovery. This last chapter draws together the core findings and tailors them into a ‘What I would tell my...

This chapter reviews studies of self-change among gamblers and cigarette smokers. As will be evident, the literature is much less advanced for these types of addictive behavior than are studies of self-change from abuse of alcohol and other drugs.

We should also consider those who have a more fleeting contact with deviance, whose careers lead them away from it into conventional ways of life. Thus, for example, studies of delinquents who fail to become adult criminals might teach us even more than studies of delinquents who progress in crime [1, pp. 24–25].

Given what is known about natural recovery, an inevitable question is: where do health-care providers fit in? As experts suggest, up to 82% of alcohol abusers resolve their problems without help from Professionals [1]. So, why are Professionals interested in getting involved? The answer, at least in part, may be because health-care providers may be...

As discussed in Chapter 1, because the vast majority of substance abusers are unlikely to enter traditional substance abuse treatment programs there is a serious need to develop and evaluate alternative, minimally intrusive interventions that appeal to individuals with substance use problems. If substance users are unwilling to come into treatment,...

As we have already seen, the idea of ‘natural recovery’ or’ spontaneous remission’ from various states of addiction is a poorly understood and much contested concept. Some commentators in the field of alcohol and drug studies accept that it happens, while others remain skeptical. Given the nature of this debate occurring within Anglo-European socie...

Voting behavior, fashion wear, eating habits, exercise, and hygiene: we do not live in a societal limbo; rather our actions are influenced and affected by societal values, trends, commercials and campaigns. From our daily experience it seems plausible that social and cognitive processes go hand in hand. In the area of natural-recovery research, dec...

This toolbox is intended to provide tools, tips and other information and resources to assist and promote the self-change process. Included in this toolbox is a listing of brief assessment instruments, an extensive listing of addictive behavior websites by different countries, as well as a selective listing of self-change books, videos, resources g...

As maintained by Toulmin [1], a certain event or condition can appear as a phenomenon — something that is problematic and needs explaining — only against the background of some inferred’ state of natural order’. This proposition is worth bearing in mind when revisiting and trying to summarize the key findings and major implications of some of the s...

Addiction perspectives on substance misuse focus on the allegedly irresistible appeal of alcohol or drugs among predisposed individuals, who presumably are made vulnerable to their addicting effects by some genetic, biological, or character flaw. An important shortcoming of this conventional perspective is that it ignores the powerful effects of th...

For many years, what has been known about recovery from addictive behaviors has come solely from treatment studies. Only recently has the study of recoveries in the absence of formal treatment or self-help groups provided an alternative source of information. This book on the process of self-change from addictive behaviors is the first of its kind,...

This paper reports on a retrospective study of the Denver Drug Court that was conducted to assess the court’s impact on court processing, treatment matching, and offender recidivism. A sample of 300 offenders from the Denver Drug Court and drug offenders from two previous years prior to the drug court was obtained. Quasi-experimental procedures wer...

Examined the characteristics of middle-class alcoholics and drug addicts who terminated their addictions without the benefit of treatment. Using what is commonly referred to as natural recovery processes, respondents terminated their addictions without formal treatment or self-help group assistance. Data for this study were based on in-depth interv...

The informal curriculum at Harvard Law School reorients ambitious individualistic incoming students toward collective definitions of achievement. They learn to cooperate with rather than compete against classmates. This creates a sense of mutual eliteness, or “collective eminence.” Students learn that professional success is available for all who a...

Most self-described left-wing Harvard law students accept lucrative jobs in large corporate law firms rather than public service employment upon graduation. These students do not wish their career choice to be interpreted (either hy themselves or by their peers) as evidence that they are hypocritical, unprincipled, materialistic, and/or uncaring. T...

This study examines upward mobility among working-class law students. It posits that the experiences of these students can be understood from a perspective of stigma. A triangulated methodology consisting of interviews, participant observation, and questionnaires is used to examine the adjustment of these law students to an elite law school environ...

Although a substantial proportion of incoming working class students at Harvard Law School plan careers in public service law, few actually pursue this course after graduation. Through a survey and in-depth interviews with 23 working class students we illustrate some of the ways they are rechannelled toward careers in high status commercial law fir...

This paper attempts to uncover the mytho-symbolic parallels between the social-psychological theories of noted sociologist W. I. Thomas and the vision of moral-religious transformation recorded in John Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress." Thomas' emphasis on the "definition of the situation," precise stages of moral development, and the four wishes a...