Three larger thematic entities in this issue of Nordic Studies on Alcohol and Drugs give insights, yet again, into the generalisability of the research field’s contribution to understanding current social and societal phenomena. First, three articles provide experience perspectives of great value not only for the ambitions of tuning practices in the welfare state system, but also for understanding human activity more generally. Together, the articles demonstrate the ways in which experiences are generalisable by tying them into the general praxis of dealing with them.

Johannessen, Nordfjærn, and Geirdal (2020) discuss the expectations and fears that people with substance use disorder (SUD) express in view of transitioning from inpatient treatment to everyday life at home. Most people know what it is like to have a yearning to belong and to be normal. The great pressure to perform to fit in is a common situation for most. But the social support networks and the well-grounded view on the transition that addiction problems add to such life path changes can be compared to all sorts of service transition situations. This knowledge is valuable for coherently developing transition questions in social work and social policy.

Another experience of great value for social work and social policy is that of Harms to Others. We know that the substance use of one person creates circles in the water and affects many people in the user’s closest sphere. Often, researchers have tried to map and measure the different dimensions. In a study on the experience of a partner’s substance use, Weimand, Birkeland, Ruud, and Høie (2020) show that it affects every aspect of the participants’ lives. Everything in the interviewees’ lives starts to centre around the partner’s ups and downs. The interviewees can be seen as themselves needing help to deal with the “lack of safety, security, and support” and in “searching for hope and meaning” in their lives. Substance use is a social work subject and phenomenon that comes in packages that grow and grow and spread over time.

This is also the main finding of the study by Kalsås, Selbekk, and Ness (2020). They have analysed the experience of professionals working with alcohol and drug problems, and find that family-oriented practice helps reveal the bigger picture. Arguing that the family-integrated and -oriented approach needs to be well structured, the authors also conclude that this involves a whole new setup of questions, challenges, and dilemmas. All three experience-based articles both identify the complexity of the problems and acknowledge that new problems arise around the core questions, the closer we come to them. The general nature of social work and social policy in the Nordic welfare states is a way of justifying and emphasising the importance of these kinds of “problem scrutiny/new problem nexus” endeavours, when they arise as social questions in our research on the experiences of substance use.

This issue also contains two more thematic entities: The first is about gambling as a risk among occupational groups (Binde & Romild, 2020) and as a sociocultural stigmatisation mechanism (Dąbrowska & Wieczorek, 2020). Last but not least, the comparison of different drug policy practices and systems is discussed in a study by Handal and colleagues (2020) on opioid maintenance treatment in three Scandinavian countries, and in a review of Tom Decorte’s book on non-profit regulation of cannabis (Lerkkanen, 2020). Both of these efforts zoom out of the experience and risk perspective, seeing the subjects of interventions as the system in which citizens are protected in a way that serves the society as a whole.

We have also launched a new Call for Papers for a special issue on cannabis policies. You can find our call at nordicwelfare.org/nad.