The Experience of Opioid Abstinence: the relevance of motivation and history

Questionnaire measures relating to a recent episode of unmodified heroin withdrawal (the target episode) were obtained from 70 subjects. The duration of the target episode, but not reported distress during the episode, correlated with the amount of heroin consumed in the previous 3 months. Data from scales measuring motivation during the target episode were factor analysed and two factors emerged, one relating to motivation concerning private affairs and the other relating to motivation derived from public sources. High scores for private affairs motivation were correlated with success in the target episode whilst there was a trend for public affairs based motivation to be associated with failure. Private affairs motivation was negatively correlated with length of heroin use but positively correlated with the number of coping strategies employed in withdrawal. The implications of these findings for the treatment of heroin users are discussed.