Ariadna Jorda Gifre
Objective: Know life stories from the point of view of consumers or former consumers of heroin who came to collect methadone in a Primary Care Center (Girona).
Design: Qualitative study with phenomenological approach. Opinion sampling as it required criteria such as accessibility and convenience. The biographical story technique was used or life stories (4 in total). Thematic content analysis: coding and creation of categories.
Results:
1) Influences of childhood / adolescence and the relationship with the neighborhood to start / maintenance of consumption. They attribute the fact of have been living in the neighborhood the cause of drug use.
2) Influence of the family environment on the start, maintenance and relapses of consumption.
Some of them came from families where the mother had disappeared, either by death or because she decided to leave. Others where family structure was maintained, the relationship between both parents has a mother's submission, being hidden under father’s authoritarianism. There is a relationship with abuse of the father towards the mother and / or children.
3) Perception of being / have been a consumer, beliefs about heroine contradictory feelings, good memories in relation to the consumption partners and the need to find good and bad in relation to physical problems, overdose, deaths and the need to cheat or steal to maintain consumption.
Conclusions: A difficult socioeconomic and family situation and child abuse seem to be basic elements to develop a consumption problem. At political level, it was interesting that the neighborhood / ghetto was a point of sale and drug use, this affected vulnerable people to end up using drugs.