Table 4.

Categories, Themes and Exemplary Quotes of Problematic Recovery-related Support among Tijuana female sex workers who inject drugs (FSW-IDUs), 2009 (n=47)

Participant	Themes	Quote
Mayte, 32	Emotional Support: caring, encouragement, trust, companionship Problematic housing situations Guilt about creating family conflict Guilt about relapsing	I felt like I was in the way… one time my stepfather began to say how he didn’t trust me, saying ‘no, she isn’t going to change, she’s going to be like that for life… my half-brother, … started arguing with his dad, and I told him, ‘no, I didn’t tell you that so you would go fight with [the family].’ And that was the cause of me leaving the house again…But also [in my mother’s ] house [I] was lonely, because they all went to work… and I would stay, alone, and I didn’t feel good. Then that was the pretext to go out [looking for drugs]. And [now, living] with my brother… when [my brother and his wife] aren’t there, the girls [his 2 daughters] are there, and I feel more comfortable… “[My family members] aren’t pressuring me because of what has happened, or because they’re taking care of me… and even with that [support], coming out of the hospital, I got better, but after about a year, there I go again back to drugs, like a pig to mud….
Diana, 23	Emotional support: companionship, caring, forgiveness Guilt about past transgressions	“[My family] threw me a birthday party in the [rehabilitation] center, all my family went to see me and they told me that they didn’t hold a grudge about what I did, that I stole from them, because I’m their family, understand? … They care for me a lot, but… I feel guilty, ashamed to go home.”
Elena, 42 Luz, 41	Financial support: to encourage staying home, avoid sex work and drugs Instrumental support: Administering reduced heroin dose Support provider struggling to recover	“We’re using very little [heroin] because she wants to get off it too. She’s been using longer than me, she’s been using since she was 14… I’ve seen her get sick [withdrawal], its really hard. [We spent] three days in the mixta, in the jail here [in Tijuana], I didn’t have [withdrawal] that bad because she was lowering the dosage without telling me…. I thank her for [doing] that… Lately she has been like, ‘I am going to go shoe-shine, you stay here, if I have to date somebody I’ll date somebody, stay home.’… She’ll get mad if she sees me out there, she’ll bring me back home. But she’s supportive that way.”
Lucia, 33	Self-isolation from supportive family members due to shame about drug use/sex work	“It would shame me if my daughters saw me all shriveled up and skinny… I have always tried to keep my daughters well-off, but right now its really hard, so now my goal is to get off the drugs… you humiliate yourself, giving your body away for drugs, for a hit, so I don’t want to go on like that, I want a normal life… not to need a hit to be able to get up in the morning.” “I haven’t been able to get out of the drug life yet, even now I tell you [my family] is still watching over me, and they still take care of me, protect me, they still take care of my daughter as if she was one of theres, and it makes me feel angry and impotent, tgat tget treat me like a 16 year old”
Additional quotes	Resentment for condescending positive support	“A lot of men have offered to me- ‘I’ll help you get away from the drugs!’ -but I don’t want to leave, I don’t want you to take me away (laughs). They offer, to get together with me, offering me a different life… it even bothers me sometimes, it bothers me that they tell me they’re going to rescue me…you’re already accustomed, you’re here, it would be another life, another world that you would have to adapt yourself to… adapting is like being reborn… you’re here, always with your drugs, your life, prostitution going on under your roof, saying cuss words, never speaking with respect, it would be like being reborn, coming into a family, sitting there like a nice girl, ‘good morning, good afternoon.’”.
	Shame and self-isolation due to drug use	“My children live here in Tijuana with my mother but I don’t go around them much because I don’t want them to be embarrassed by me with their friends.” “I want to get clean in a rehabilitation center… I want to really learn what love is, and see my daughters more, and that they aren’t embarrassed by me.”