ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses how the ‘horsers’ can develop a form of respectability in the subculture. As in the previous chapter, it is about handling the threat from within and from outside, however, the threat considered is not primarily to the social bonds, but to the members’ identities. The realization of being seriously dependent on heroin gives rise to feelings of shame, and injecting heroin is extra problematic in that it too closely resembles the stereotype they try to keep themselves from becoming. The shame of drug abuse is created by established society, which perceives the drug addict as a social failure and a creature of low status. There is, however, no condemnation of drug use in the subculture. The chapter shows that there are a series of possible ways the subculture’s members can interpret these situations, which differ from the interpretations by the establishment.
