Exploring the lived experience of women with high-risk drug use in Malta

Abstract

This study explores the lived experience of women who have engaged or engage in high-risk drug use in Maltese communities. It explores the journey women partake when they start to use drugs and become drug dependent, exploring victimizing experiences that they contribute to have impacted their addictive trajectories. It investigates how they come to realise and experience that they are drug dependent, how others react to them, and how they negotiate their day to day lives. It goes into what it is like for them to be a woman with high-risk drug use, members of their communities and experience a drug use disorder. It also covers their experiences of treatment and community reintegration efforts. A qualitative research approach was used. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven participants. The interviews were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Three super-ordinate themes emerged: Lost in Space – the experience of early trauma and victimization in childhood and adolescence; From LaLa Land to the Land of Confusion – the experience of the addictive career,from hubris (pride) to nemesis (shame); The Road less Travelled – the experience of desistance, the ability to experience emotions. Reintegration of women with high-risk drug use, indicates a complex path in which feelings of shame, some of which caused by community shaming, could play a barrier to adhere to a social reality from which they have been ostracized and to which, with time, have become estranged. This research has pragmatic value, providing insight into implications for community action in order to apply more effective policies and service strategies.