NEWS: The Age - 12/12/2005 'Drug use linked to partners'

[hoptis]

The results of another interesting study, following in the wake of a study that debunked the view of heroin as a one-hit addiction. Following the Nguyen hanging and current discussions in the media about how dangerous heroin is, it's important people hear something more concrete than myths and anecdotes about how and why people become addicted to heroin.

Drug use linked to partners
By Carol Nader, Health Reporter
December 12, 2005

WOMEN who are injecting drug users often get their first hit from their partners, and take up the habit to feel closer to them.

The stereotype of the heroin junkie as a desperate loner is dispelled by the work of a Melbourne University researcher, who has followed the experiences of 21 women with a history of heavy drug use — predominantly heroin.

Once the women have had their first taste, it triggers a cycle of dependence in which they rely on their partners for their next hit.

Previous research has shown that about 50 per cent of drug-injecting women in treatment have a partner, and of their partners more than 70 per cent are also users.

Researcher Fiona Martin, from the university's sociology program, talked to the women as part of her PhD. The women were all getting treatment for drug use and were in the final stages of pregnancy or early motherhood.

Ms Martin said some of the women used heroin to feel intimacy with their drug-taking partners. But some of the women started injecting drugs as a way of disentangling themselves from a boyfriend who was "dead against" drug use.

For some of the women, injecting drugs was a secret they shared with their partner. "For some women it was about knowing that they had done something that no one else knew about," she said. It was doing "something … dangerous that changed the way they saw themselves".

Other women "felt like the drugs were standing between them and their partner, so injecting was a way of finding out what was so enchanting about it to their partner and being a part of it with them".

There was no suggestion that the women were coerced into injecting drugs. The women said they were very cautious the first time, and made sure the person administering the drugs "knew what they were doing".

"We often think of women drug users as being … victims of male coercion, but that wasn't a very significant theme," Ms Martin said. "It was more about wanting to find out what it was about injecting drugs that meant so much to this other person who they loved."

When it came to motherhood, the women faced a dilemma — they felt they could not be a mother and a heavy drug user at the same time, which prompted them to try to stop.

From The Age

 

[zaineaol.nu]

Very interesting read, and i'd agree with alot of it...

Luckily, me and my girlfriend both take drugs.. we dont inject.

We've decided more or less not to do drugs together, as we don't really like eachother's attitudes whilst high...

 

[chugs]

I don't want to moralize but don't be complacent just because you don't inject.

I found it very difficult to stop my regular beer a night habit, almost as hard as stopping a heroin addiction. Certainly my anxiety levels have rocketed, in some ways much worse then a few days of withdrawals & post heroin addiction depression.

Not smoking pot or taking any other drug makes it doubly more difficult as your forced to find non-chemical means of compensating for the increased anxiety, stress, depression and physical pain.

Being complacent is the easiest way of getting an addiction be it from bulbs, grog, pot, nutmeg, LSD (and I do believe LSD is very habit forming, at least it's something I would like to take weekly sometimes).

Take the festive month for example and think about not drinking, even when celebrating with your friends and family. I've brought a case of nice champagne and I would love to drink it, got a bottle Gin with my name on it but I find it interesting to see how much pain/desire I can tolerate before I succumb to a drink (and by all means I'm not a big drinker, even before hand). I'm not worried I've got an uncontrollable addiction but by all means it is something I think we should have a rest from, especially at times when we all treat ourselves (since it's a month like this where you make all manner of excuses for silly binges that somehow "just happen").

I bet most people would have twinges of reluctance, or pain, at the very least, about the thought of not drinking or smoking anything during this month.