Swiss heroin-addicted females: Career and social adjustment

Studies on gender-related differences among heroin-addicted individuals are uncommon because women usually make up only one quarter of any one sample group. In our sample group of 248 Swiss-German heroin-addicted individuals from different therapeutic programs and prisons, 70 were women (28.2%). Follow-up investigations were conducted after a lapse of 2 years, and after a lapse of 7 years, respectively. Men and women appear to differ with respect to why they begin to use drugs, as well as why they relapse back into drug use. Prior to the commencement of drug abuse, social background concerns and social adjustment dynamics appear to constitute a heavier burden for women than for men. Observations of social functioning and adjustment phenomena made during their drug careers and in the follow-up investigations, however, failed to yield significant statistical differences. The predominant effects of drug use appear to eclipse the gender-related role-pattern. On the basis of our background data, as well as our therapeutic experience, we postulate that for an individual whose sex-role identity is threatened, drug abuse has a stabilizing function, and it carries a message.