This paper offers a theoretical model to understand the meaning of different personal and psychosocial factors that can contribute to the development of long-term use of narcotics. The analysis is based on participant observation studies of daily consumers of narcotics in Stockholm over a period of 4 1/2 years. An important theme in this paper is the author's analysis of how to understand the development of the drug user's negative self-image and self-destructive behavior. The author uses a life-history model to explain the developmental processes that lead an individual to becoming a daily consumer of narcotics. The model consists of four stages. The first two stages, "parental labeling" and "societal labeling," focus on how to understand the development of a very negative self-image or a negative sense of self. The third stage describes how the individual consciously breaches societal norms, thereby provoking negative responses from the environment, which, in turn, results in confirmation of the negative self-image. In the fourth stage, even more negative and deviant behavior reinforces the negative sense of self within the individual, as societal responses become more virulent. 3 figures and 22 references