Theme 3: Facing negative perceptions of HCV and substance use disorder
Participants referred to themselves as ‘addicts’, a learned label and attitude associated with substance use that reinforces negative self‐perceptions. This attitude was revealed in the language that participants used to refer to themselves as ‘dirty’ or ‘clean’ depending on their current state of substance use, as one participant reflected:A lot of addicts feel the same way [about their substance use]… You can't imagine the horror that I go through… It's hard to explain unless you're familiar with addiction personally.