An Existential-Phenomenology of Crack Cocaine Abuse

Abstract

This paper explores the human significance of crack cocaine abuse by submitting its manifestation (logos) to existential-phenomenological analysis. The author conducted over fifty, first-hand interviews of recovering and active crack cocaine abusers toward disclosing the meaning of his to-be.What is revealed is the way the addiction reacts upon the with-structure of existence. Active crack cocaine addiction is being-high-and-free-of-craving. The singularity of this event eclipses the interhuman significance that substantially constitutes concern, as the meaning and Being of There-being, and radicalizes existence such that the “other” is unceasingly projected as a means to free transcendence. The crack abuser forsakes the existentials being-with and There-being-with-others, ways of to-be that accommodate and gear into the existence of “others,” to being-with-crack, a way of Being that is exclusively for the sake of the dependent’s “self.”