مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رسانی علوم و فناوری پژوهش انحرافات و مسائل اجتماعی 3060-821X 6 19 2026 7 20 Lived Experience of Addicted Women about the Feminization of Addiction تجربه زیسته زنان معتاد از زنانه شدن اعتیاد 81 108 fa اکبر طالب پور دانشیار گروه علوم ‌اجتماعی، دانشکده ‌علوم اجتماعی و اقتصاد، دانشگاه الزهرا، تهران، ایران فاطمه درویشی دانشگاه الزهرا 2025 12 23 Lived Experience of Addicted Women about the Feminization of Addiction   Akbar Talebpour<a href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">*</a> Fatemeh Darvishi<a href="#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2">**</a>   The increased presence of women in society, in addition to its favorable opportunities, also brought social harms. Observing women smoking cigarettes and other drugs in public is a sign of feminization of addiction, which has been studied in this study using grounded theory to produce a local theory of feminization of addiction. The target population of the study was women involved in addiction in Tehran, and twenty of these people were interviewed as study subjects. The sampling method was purposeful and snowball due to the lack of access to the population. The research data collection technique were in-depth and semi-structured interviews. Strauss and Corbin coding was used to analyze the data in the form of open, axial, and selective coding. The results of the study showed that the underlying conditions of economic deprivation, dysfunctional family, and cultural deprivation, along with the causal conditions of violence, the experience of loss and high risk-taking, and the intervening conditions of easy access, pure friends, and low cost of deviation, play a very significant role in the feminization of addiction. This ultimately entails consequences such as loss of social and human capital, lack of social participation, illness, social despair, and social exclusion. Addicted women used strategies of denial, justification, and conflict with society to avoid social exclusion. Social frustration and despair have exacerbated women's addiction and led them to conflict with their families and society. Such conflict can become a major source of aggression and resentment towards society, which is very harmful. Keywords: Addiction, Social Despair, Grounded Theory, Feminization, Social Exclusion.   Introduction The study and investigation of women's addiction have been neglected and hidden for several reasons, including their avoidance of visiting addiction treatment centers and fear of the labels and stigmas that society places on addicted women (Barabadi et al., 2018: 235). According to the results of research conducted in the field of addiction, addicted women have been placed under the main shell of addiction and the reasons for this group's addiction have not been given serious attention. In addition, today, addiction is considered a social figure and gesture and has become normal among women, which is increasing day by day in a metropolis like Tehran. This city has provided a suitable platform for women's addiction due to its vastness and anonymity. Discovering the reasons for the tendency towards addiction from the perspective of addicted women and identifying the underlying, causal and interfering reasons for women's addiction from the perspective of the affected individuals can create new scientific approaches to the subject under study and clarify the strategies and consequences of addiction of addicted women from the perspective of these individuals. Therefore, the present study seeks to search for the backgrounds, causal conditions and interfering conditions leading to the formation of women's addiction from the perspective of the target group and to address the strategies and consequences of women's addiction. The importance and necessity of studying in this field is obvious and it is necessary to say that studies of this kind, in addition to producing indigenous theory in the field of the subject under study, will also help social policymakers in dealing with this phenomenon.   Theoretical Framework Previous studies have examined women's addiction using quantitative methods and have tried to explain women's addiction using addiction theories and discuss the factors affecting this phenomenon. It is obvious that in these studies, women's addiction is not given serious attention from the perspective of addicted women and is neglected. In view of this, the difference between the present study and previous studies is in paying attention to addiction from the perspective of the target community and from the perspective of women by using a qualitative method and, in fact, the method of empathetic introspection, so that by using the experiences of these people, a better attitude towards the phenomenon under study can be found and solutions tailored to the problems of this group can be presented. According to Agnew's structural pressure theory, there are three general sources of pressure: failure in valuable situations, failure to achieve goals such as academic and career positions, etc., and negative motivations that experience bitter and fragile relationships such as unsuccessful relationships in marriage or the bitter experience of separation, divorce in the family environment or undesirable relationships or the loss of loved ones, etc. can lead to women's addiction tendencies; In a way, women turn to alternatives to escape the pressures they face, one of which is addiction (Siegel, 2016: 159 and Alivardinia et al., 2007: 93).According to Blau's theory of relative deprivation, in a society where the economic and social balance is in the hands of the wealthy class, people from lower classes compare themselves with the wealthy classes, which leads to a sense of deprivation and a sense of injustice in them, and increases their distrust. However, since the opportunity for progress through legitimate criteria is closed, a feeling of inability to achieve goals arises, which leads to aggression and drug addiction (Siegel, 2016: 142). According to the unequal opportunity theory of Klouward & Ohlin, people from lower social classes are more likely to be driven towards addiction and deviant behavior because they believe that these people are under pressure due to the lack of legitimate opportunities to achieve their goals, and the gap between success and its failure to be achieved through legitimate and illegitimate means leads to a sense of failure, defeat, and isolation that leads them to substance use (Mohseni Tabrizi, 2002: 8). Shaw and Mackey believe that the causes and occurrence of deviant behavior can be sought in social problems, the cause of which is uncontrolled migration patterns. They believe that changes in the physical structure of the city affect the social behavior of individuals (Mumtaz, 2002: 87).   Methodology Given the sensitivity and high risk of the issue, a snowball sampling method was used. An initial introduction to the addicted women was conducted through the police force, and then the interviews were conducted in person. All interviews were handwritten due to the participants’ unwillingness to participate, and pseudonyms were used to protect the participants’ dignity and rights. Sampling and research work in the database should proceed to the point where the researcher reaches theoretical saturation; that is, the researcher reaches a point where he or she feels that new interviews do not highlight new dimensions of the study (Talebpour and Beiranvand, 2022: 110). The target sample size was 20 addicted women who had lived experience of addiction in the Tehran metropolis. Although the researchers had reached theoretical saturation in the 14th interview, to ensure greater certainty, the interviews continued to 20 people. Most of the interviewees lived in Tehran, including regions; Shush, Molavi, Darvaze Ghar, Khavaran, Gorgan Street. To examine the validity of the research, the member validity technique was used (Strauss & Corbin, 2019: 180). For this purpose, the interviews were provided to several participants with initial codes attached so that the similarity of the categories extracted by the researcher with the participants' mindset could be compared, and in some cases, categories were modified that were different from what the participants had experienced. In some cases, the participants' ambiguities about some categories were answered. Also, to examine the reliability of the research, the technique of re-examination by professors and experts in this field and the validation of analytical comparisons was used as a criterion and benchmark for the research. The text of the initial interviews along with the extracted categories was provided to the sociology professors, and after a round-trip interaction session, a complete consensus was reached on the extracted categories.   Results Participants were between 22 and 47 years, and their age mean was 35.55 years. Half of the interviewees were in higher education and 50 percent of them were in lower levels. The onset age range of addiction among users was from 15 to 39 years, and the average age of starting drug use was 25.4, and the average number of years of drug use of these women was 7.4 years. The drugs used by most of the study subjects were crystal meth, followed by opium and heroin. In terms of marital status, eight were divorced, five were married, and seven were single. The economic base of five was low, eight were middle class, and seven were upper class. The occupations of the study subjects included hairdressing, sales, secretarial work, prostitution, drug sales, and drug trafficking. According to the results of the research, contexts such as economic deprivation, dysfunctional family, and cultural deprivation, along with causal conditions of violence, experience of loss and high risk-taking, and intervening conditions of easy access, pure friends, and low cost of deviation, play a very significant role in the feminization of addiction. This ultimately entails consequences such as loss of social and human capital, lack of social participation, illness, social despair, and social exclusion. Meanwhile, addicted women use strategies of denial, justification, and conflict with society to prevent social exclusion.   Discussion and Conclusion In addicted women perspective, the availability of drugs played a significant role in the feminization of addiction. Women and girls used the mechanism of denial to continue their use and justify their addiction, believing that the drugs they used were not addictive at all and were just a plant substance that transformed their immediate state and led to instant euphoria. The main consequences of women's addiction were in areas such as reduced social and human capital, reduced social participation of women, physical and mental illnesses, stigmatization and social exclusion, which caused irreparable harm to women. Most of the results of the reviewed studies were consistent with the results of the present study, in such a way that the categories obtained in the field of causal conditions, intervening conditions and, to some extent, consequences were consistent with most previous domestic and foreign studies. The findings of the research on social despair were consistent with the theories of Durkheim, Merton, and the theories of conflict theorists. These results were consistent with Talebpour (2023) and Motyka et al. (2022) findings. The category of social despair and the role of structures in women's addiction was somewhat different from the results of previous studies. Social despair and conflict with society to prevent social exclusion include the frustration of addicted women, which can turn into latent resentment against society. In times of social crises, latent resentment can lead to revenge against society in the form of vandalistic behaviors and contribute to the spread of social unrest. In order to reduce the harm caused by the feminization of addiction, it is necessary for those in charge of the matter to take serious measures on the one hand towards the treatment and rehabilitation of addicted women, and on the other hand to prevent the increase in the number of people involved in this field. Special attention should be paid to creating hope among the young generation and women, and by increasing hope for the future among the young generation, the community's leaders should prevent the increase in social despair in society, so that on the one hand the growth and dynamism of society can be maintained, and on the other hand, the eruption of accumulated anger can be prevented.   References Ahmadi, H. (2005) Sociology of Deviance, Tehran, Samt. ISBN 9789644599378.(In Persian). Alivardinia, A, Riahi, M,I, & Mousavi Chashmi, S,M.(2007) A Sociological Study of Delinquency: An Empirical Test of Agnew's Public Pressure Theory.. 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(In Persian). <a href="https://jobssar.ir/showpaper/734678">https://jobssar.ir/showpaper/734678</a>.     <a href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1">*</a> Corresponding Author: Associate Professor, Department of Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences and Economics, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran. a.talebpour@alzahra.ac.ir https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1644-6117 <a href="#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2">**</a> M.A in Sociology, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran. fatemeh.xxx2020@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0009-0000-8978-7076 افزایش حضور زنان در جامعه علاوه بر فرصت&zwnj;های مطلوبی که در برداشت، آسیب&zwnj;های اجتماعی نیز با خود به همراه آورده &zwnj;است. مشاهده زنانی که در عرصه &zwnj;عمومی جامعه در حال تدخین سیگار و سایر مواد مخدر، هستند نشانه&zwnj;هایی از اعتیاد زنان است که در پژوهش حاضر با استفاده از روش گراندد تئوری به &zwnj;منظور تولید نظریه بومی زنانه شدن اعتیاد مورد مطالعه قرار گرفته &zwnj;است. جامعه هدف پژوهش، زنان درگیر اعتیاد شهر تهران بود که با تعداد بیست نفر از این افراد به &zwnj;عنوان افراد مورد مطالعه مصاحبه انجام شد. روش نمونه&zwnj;گیری به&zwnj; دلیل عدم دسترسی به جمعیت، به&zwnj; صورت هدفمند و از نوع گلوله&zwnj;برفی بود. ابزار و تکنیک گردآوری داده&zwnj;های تحقیق، مصاحبه&zwnj; عمیق و نیمه&zwnj;ساختاریافته بود. برای تجزیه و تحلیل داده&zwnj;ها از کدگذاری اشتراوس و کوربین در قالب کدگذاری باز، محوری و انتخابی استفاده شد. نتایج پژوهش نشان داد که شرایط زمینه&zwnj;ای محرومیت اقتصادی، خانوادة نابسامان و محرومیت فرهنگی در کنار شرایط علیِ خشونت&zwnj;دیدگی، تجربه فقدان و ریسک&zwnj;پذیری زیاد و شرایط مداخله&zwnj;گرِ دسترسی آسان، دوستان ناب و هزینه پایین انحراف، نقش بسیار بارزی در زنانه شدن اعتیاد دارد. این امر در نهایت پیامدهایی همچون اتلاف سرمایة اجتماعی و انسانی، عدم مشارکت اجتماعی، بیماری، یأس اجتماعی و طرد اجتماعی در بردارد. در این میان زنان معتاد از راهبردهای انکار، توجیه و ستیز با جامعه به &zwnj;منظور جلوگیری از طرد اجتماعی استفاده می&zwnj;کنند. سرخوردگی و یأس اجتماعی، اعتیاد زنان را تشدید می&zwnj;نماید و آنان را به ستیز با خانواده و جامعه سوق می&zwnj;دهد. چنین ستیزی، منبع اصلی پرخاشگری و کینه نسبت به جامعه محسوب می&zwnj;شود.

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