198 Grief and Loss Across the Lifespan
other with a place to stay, “tricking” for one another if someone is “sick” and
needs drugs, offering advice to help one another engage in sex work more
safely or profitably, as well as advice to help one another desist from sex work,
information on employment, health, and encouragement in times of trouble
including the death of loved ones, loss of children, relapse, and general hard-
ship. Diversion and recovery programs often encourage or require separation
from what is referred to in “treatment speak” as “triggers.” The PDC, court
probation, and treatment programs ask or require that participants sever ties
with “people, places, and things” that may tempt participants to use drugs
or engage in prostitution. The people and places that they are asked to avoid
may be a community or even blood or fictive relatives. Avoidance is justified
from the perspective of the PDC. Amy, a 30-year-old woman, described her
relapse as a result of her desire to show her friends how well she was doing.
She returned to the neighborhood where she sold sex and used drugs “and
then I was off to the races.”
PDC participants are asked to avoid neighborhoods where they had lived
and worked, which are also where they are most likely to find financial and
emotional support as well as badly needed housing.* A maze of court-required
activities including recovery programs and counseling hamper formation of
new communities and relationships. Formation of new relationships is also
difficult as many women are hesitant to discuss their participation in the PDC,
their former lives, and their current struggles with others who may judge
them. Once participation in the PDC ends, women lose even the community
of court-involved women that come to mandatory monthly court hearings.
Like Nicole, some “visit” court if their finances, employment schedule, and
transportation permit. They return for the community of women with similar
experiences, and for the criminal justice professionals with whom they have
developed relationships: For some this is the judge, for another the probation
officer, for still others the public defender or the prosecutor.
A second kind of loss is to street-based sex workers’ image of self, which
comes in several forms. Perhaps least discussed are some of the physical
changes that women experience, usually from ceasing to use drugs if they are
addicted. CeeJay, a 26-year-old, described physical sensations she experienced
as part of her withdrawal:I have a boil, excuse me (rubbing under her arm). That’s what happens
when you get clean, everything kind of comes through your pores. All
the pores. Not just one, it’s like (noises) you’re sneezing and you’re,
huh, you’re coughing up phlegm that’s not (from a) cold. It’s off your
lungs (big yawn, then sniffling).Many PDC participants gain weight, a frequent topic of court conversa-
tion. The combination of addiction recovery that leads to increased appetite
and the high-carbohydrate, low-quality food that women eat in jail, treat-
ment programs, or on tight budgets leads to weight gain. Leaving prostitu-
tion can also have positive impacts on participants’ appearance that come
with better access to hygiene resources and medical and dental care. Whether*These are also the neighborhoods where the majority of recovery houses are located.