Queering Addiction Recovery in Neoliberal Times

Abstract This musing explores the neoliberalization of addiction recovery and its implications for queer subjects, their affects and attachments. The author examines the ways in which neoliberal ideology usurps the critical potential of trauma-informed theory and practice in the context of addiction recovery, and offers a queer reading of the affects of addiction experienced as a negotiation of this tension. How do queer experiences both challenge and reflect the neoliberal ethos informing contemporary frameworks for addiction recovery? Through a media analysis of the Netflix mini-series, Feel Good , which depicts an experience of queer addiction and codependency, the author illustrates how a representation of queer affect is mediated by neoliberal formulations of subjectivity and pathology. A theoretical framework combining critical addiction studies and feminist affect studies is employed to examine the challenges and possibilities for queer subjects whose experiences at the intersection of systemic oppression and addictive attachment have the potential to subvert the neoliberalization of addiction recovery.