This project is a two-year ethnographic-type study of the careers in heroin of a sample of 100 women addicts. In addition to 100 individual in-depth interviews, we are conducting five group sessions and casually frequenting addict congregating locales and visiting women in their homes. We are attempting to discover all the aspects of the woman's career in heroin: how she gets in to the world of heroin; why she stays in; how she supports her habit, cares for her children, relates to the "significant others" in her life (e.g., men, family, friends); her experience with the criminal justice system; how and why she attempts to clean up and get out of the life; recidivism; the way in which aging affects her career; and finally, how, when and why she successfully gets out of the world of heroin.