This article focuses on the ageing process among drug-using women, proceeded on the basis of a critical post-structural approach to the life course (Holstein and Gubrium 2000; Halberstam 2005; Ahmed 2006; Mattsson 2014). The objective is to provide an alternative perspective on the life course to that which dominates current criminology. This perspective challenges prevailing norms and conceptions regarding the other, and in doing so focuses the analysis on the social mechanisms that lie behind social exclusion, crime and drug use. By means of the retrospective narratives of 4 women, who describe a rambling journey along crooked paths on the margins of the welfare state, the article reveals the nature of prevailing norms and conceptions regarding ageing, gender and drug use.