In relation to womanhood and motherhood, the stories of the participants uncover very specific expectations and dynamics. There seems to be an ideal image of the woman that is centred around the idea of giving life and taking care of life. In this way womanhood gets defined in relation to ‘a woman as a mother’, even if women don’t have children. At the same time there is an allocation to drug use and/or addiction as something destructive. As a consequence, women who use drugs or are (ex-)addicts are seen as ‘bad’ women. The central idea is that when you use drugs, you cannot take on your ‘responsibility’ as a woman or a mother.