Application of the Passionate Attachment Model to Recreational Use of MDMA/Ecstasy

People who persistently use ecstasy without being addicted may have a passionate attachment to the activity. In a community sample of ecstasy users, both obsessive and harmonious passion scores were linked to lower self-efficacy to refuse the drug and greater use of ecstasy to cope with worries. Obsessive passion was partially associated with more frequent use, more lifetime uses, and more pills consumed per occasion, whereas harmonious passion was not tied to those consumption measures. The modified Passion Scale could supplement assessments of the psychology behind ecstasy use.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Those who are not addicted to ecstasy, but who use it persistently over time, could be viewed as having a "passionate attachment" to a highly valued activity. To evaluate the associations of obsessive and harmonious passion with psychological and behavioral aspects of ecstasy consumption, we recruited a community sample of ecstasy users to complete a modified version of the Passion Scale (Vallerand et al. 2003) and other questionnaires assessing their substance use history, self-efficacy to refuse ecstasy, and use of ecstasy to cope with worries and problems. Both Obsessive and Harmonious passion scores were negatively correlated with self-efficacy to refuse ecstasy and positively correlated with using ecstasy to cope with worries and problems. The findings also provided partial support for our hypotheses that scores on the Obsessive Passion subscale would be associated with number of times participants had used ecstasy, the frequency of use, and the typical number of pills consumed. Participants agreed more strongly with statements indicative of Harmonious Passion to consume ecstasy, but Harmonious subscale scores were not associated with several measures of consumption. As a supplemental measure, the modified questionnaire could provide a more comprehensive picture of the psychology of one's ecstasy use.