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Abstract: This article looks at how intravenous drug users in Finland perceive their problems and the social and health care interventions designed to address those problems. Aim: The aim is to open up new perspectives on the current debate around the services and treatments available to drug users. The study is based on an ethnographic observation and interview material collected at health counselling centres for intravenous drug users, including users' talk about the service system and their service needs as well as my own observations of how drug users cope within the service system. Methods: The discourse analysis is grounded in the concept and idea of talking back, which I use to challenge current constructions (often by experts and the authorities) of the drug abuse problem. I juxtapose these constructions with drug users' interpretations, which I address by the concept of interpretative framework. Results: Drug users themselves also describe their lives largely via their problems, but their explanations of these problems are rather different from those offered by experts and the authorities. The first key characteristic is the tension that is constructed between drug users who look upon themselves as abnormal and the so-called normal population. A second distinctive feature in drug users' everyday life is its multiple, simultaneous problems and it's oppressive, unbearably forced rhythm. Conclusion: Existing social and health care interventions do not provide adequate support to drug users, but on the contrary may even complicate their lives.

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