Teens involved with drugs and engaged in delinquent behavior lessen their life chances. This article examines the relationship between early illicit drug exposure, delinquency, and subsequent adult experience through the life history accounts of 31 men who are homeless drug addicts today. The men's retrospective reports link personal history and social circumstance to describe common pathways associated with and emerging from adolescent delinquency and drug involvement. Their accounts, framed within the social development model, indicate that the life chances of teens at risk might improve if policy-based solutions and interventions target and ameliorate contextual and interpersonal risk factors interfering with the accumulation of social capital.
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