[Socio-cultural alientation and heroin addiction]

Heroin addiction is approached in this paper as a sociological process which takes place as a refusal of, or alienation from, the conventional social system, with, at the same time, attraction towards an alienated world, which gives recognition and identity to the subject. Three phases are identifiable in such process: 1) The subject is unable to copy or identify with an adult sexual model (normally, the parent of the same sex). This may reach the level of rejectal of the model. 2) The subject does not succeed in obtaining legitimate goals and benefits. This failure may only be imaginary, but involves a condition of subjective suffering. 3) The subject cannot establish good and significant relationships with nonaddicted peers, and consquently lives in isolation. The three phases are evident in a study carried out by the Author on 750 eddicts from New York and Puerto Rico. The integration into the deviant addict culture, which follows the triple failure outlined above, must be treated with training and resocialization techniques.