When Drugs Come into the Picture, Love Flies out the Window: Women Addicts’ Love Relationships

Abstract

The inundation which characterizes the heroin world focuses attention almost exclusively on drugs. Heroin often provides an addicted couple with commonality and a necessary focus in their relationship. Lacking sexuality and other nondrug activities, heroin begins to undermine the relationship. The addict-couple often begins to argue over money and drugs. There is bitterness, resentment and often violence as a result of perceived inequalities on the part of one partner or the other. Most addict-couples'' relationships end on a sad and bitter note. The woman addict gradually becomes generally embittered with men, especially male addicts. With this embitterment, she occasionally gives up men completely and, in so doing, relinquishes one of the few roles open to her, that of homemaker.