The Social Environment of Relapsed Drug Users in Nepal

Abstract

This study examines the social environment of drug users who have relapsed followingtheir stay at a drug rehabilitation center. The social environment paradigm of William C.Cockerham was taken as the basic premise for the study, which describes socialenvironment as consisting of three clauses:actual living conditions; norms and values;and particular social and cultural context (presupposed as ‘alienation’ by the study) ofrelapsed drug users. The understanding of the clauses of social environment is furtherreinforced by the theoretical perspectives of Phenomenology, Symbolic Interaction andAlienation. This study focuses on comprehending the sociological and anthropologicalintricacies that constitutes the three clauses of social environment of the relapsed drugusers (RDUs). Further, the study also explores the stance of the drug rehabilitationcenters and various service providers working with drug users, to understand their roleand perspective on the phenomena of drug abuse in Kathmandu. This study is a balanceof both qualitative and quantitative methodologies and exploits tools such as aquestionnaire, containing closed and open-ended queries and ethnographic approaches,including participant observation, interviews, and case studies to derive the data for thestudy. The study, with the use of purposive sampling technique, located a sample of 153RDUs, and 4 additional participants for case studies through 6 drug rehabilitation centerslocated in Kathmandu. The study found the social environment of RDUs as characterizedby high degree of incarceration, risky behavior, discontinuity of education andemployment, long and intensive drug career, easy access to drugs, high degree ofassociation with user friends, early resumption of drug use following discharge fromrehabilitation centers, long duration of drug use following relapse, and high level ofregrets and self pity (among RDUs living with HIV/AIDS). Findings also showed noclear indications on the differences of social environment between married and singleRDUs. Further, alienation, even as being clearly evident, wasn’t present in its severestform amongst the RDUs. The study also found intact relationships for a majority ofRDUs with their families, and high regards from RDUs on their recovery and on theirfamily and social obligations.Further, relapse, as the study found out was a critical social-cultural phenomena to beunderstood and tackled. Findings showed that various socio-cultural situations andantecedents, weaker defensive mechanisms of drug users, their intensive drug use career,specificevents and gaps within intervention efforts seemed to have initialized, catalyzedor compounded the craving urge and thus creating a compulsion to use drugs.