Understanding Desistance from Drug-Immersed Lifestyles: Exiting Methamphetamine

• In Event: Perspectives on Drug Use, Abuse, & Desistance

Abstract

Those most heavily involved with methamphetamine become immersed in lifestyles that revolve around use, dealing, and manufacturing the drug. For them, pathways out include desisting from multiple aspects of the lifestyle. Little is known about processes of desistance from methamphetamine-immersed lifestyles. This study examines the desistance experiences of 33 former manufacturers, dealers, and users. Data were gathered through semi-structured, qualitative interviews. Desistance is a multi-dimensional and complex process. Those attempting to transition out of drug-immersed lifestyles face numerous challenges as they attempt to navigate their ways back to conventional lives. An insiders’ perspective on the processes and factors that influence desistance from methamphetamine will be discussed.

Author

• Rashi K. Shukla, University of Central Oklahoma