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50 = USING INTERPRETATIVE PHENOMENOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
Intrapersonal context: the drug hijacks the personality
Participants mentioned the strong impact of SCs on their mental states, more
specifically a temporally change in consciousness and behavior that lead to
losing control. This is why they felt they were hijacked by the drug.
»During that time (of consumption), I felt like my body was controlled by someone
else, like it wasn’t me, I couldn't control it.’ (Levente)
„At the end I sank into it, I couldn’t remember what I did ten minutes before, if
someone asked me about it, I couldn’t answer it, so it influenced my life so badly”.
(Attila)
„Ihe drug totally distorted my personality, it turned myself inside out... it made
me blunt, and switched off my brain.” (Zsolt)
By saying that the drug hijacked them, participants tried to describe their
experience of addiction, which was perceived as compulsive drug use.
„You become blunt, like if you don’t know about yourself, your body desires the
drug so much, so you smoke. You know it is bad, but you want the drug and it
wants you, it is not good, but you smoke it compulsively.” (Attila)
It is impossible to distinguish the experiences of drug use and addiction in
these accounts. Due to the rapid development of addiction that was reported
by the par-ticipants, the experiences of drug use are the same as the experi¬
ence of addiction; thus, participants mentioned predominantly negative
experiences.
»1 think this bio-weed causes addiction the fastest, because I have not experienced
this kind of addiction before, not with any other drug? (Levente)
Participants often mentioned their first thoughts in the morning were all about
the drug:
“When I opened my eyes, it was already prepared around me in the bed: the filter,
the paper and fresh tobacco” (Ricsi). And every thought they had was about the
acquisition and consumption of the drug: “In the end I was so addicted that I
went to bed with it, I woke up with it every hour, and I was unconscious, and then
I woke up to realizing that I was smoking it.” (Attila)