Hindawi Publishing Corporation Case Reports in Psychiatry Volume 2011, Article ID 905380, 2 pages doi:10.1155/2011/905380 Case Report Workplace Inhalant Abuse in Adult Female: Brief Report Rohit Verma, Yatan Pal Singh Balhara, and Smita N. Deshpande Department of Psychiatry and Drug Deaddiction, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, New Delhi 110060, India Correspondence should be addressed to Rohit Verma, rohit.aiims@gmail.com Received 17 June 2011; Accepted 20 July 2011 Academic Editors: L. Capuron and T. Suzuki Copyright © 2011 Rohit Verma et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Inhalant abuse is the purposeful inhalation of intoxicating gases and vapors for the purpose of achieving an altered mental state. With its propensity for being yet an under-recognized form of substance use, being gateway to hard substances, cross-cultural penetration crossing socioeconomic boundaries, and causing signiﬁcant morbidity and mortality in early ages, the prevention of inhalant misuse is a highly pertinent issue. This clinical report identiﬁes a newer perspective in the emergence of inhalant abuse initiation. We report a case of an adult female with late onset of inhalant dependence developing at workplace and recommend for greater awareness, prevention, and management of this expanding substance abuse problem. 1. Introduction Inhalants are volatile substances that produce chemical va- pors that can be inhaled to induce a psychoactive, or mind- altering, eﬀect. They encompass a broad range of chemicals that may have diﬀerent pharmacological eﬀects and are found in hundreds of diﬀerent products, for example, in- clude fuels, solvents, propellants, glues, adhesives, and paint thinners. Inhaled substances are widely available, convenient, inex- pensive, easily concealed, and legal for speciﬁc intended uses but are intentionally misused by abusers. Many of these qualities are important factors that promote use in a young age group. The initiation of inhalant abuse onset at adult- hood is unreported as per our knowledge. We report a rare case of onset of inhalant dependence in an adult female at workplace. 2. Case History A 43-year-old married female of middle socioeconomic sta- tus Hindu nuclear family with well-adjusted premorbid per- sonality and no past/or family history of any psychiatric ill- ness/or substance abuse, working as an assistant secretary in a government oﬃce since 15 years presented with 3 years history of inhaling typewriter ﬂuid. The ﬁrst time she inhaled it by accident while typing and liked its relaxing eﬀect. There- after, occasionally she would inhale it mostly by mistake dur- ing work, but never took an active eﬀort to persuade it. Three years back, her mother-in-law moved to their home and patient reported having occasional heated arguments with her. After one such event, patient went to work and found that the typewriter ﬂuid provided relaxation to her mind, and her tension was reduced. Thereafter, whenever she would have an altercation with the family members, she would break away and inhale the ﬂuid, which she started keeping at home. Over next 4-5 months, she started using it on a daily basis, even without having any immediate stressful situation. She would use 3-4 bottles every day, bringing them from workplace, where she would ﬁnd no diﬃculty in obtaining it. Gradually she started reporting craving for it and would become irritable complaining of body ache, restlessness, reduced concentration, and disturbed sleep when not able to obtain the ﬂuid. The family members initially felt happy that she was not retaliating to their arguments but later started becoming annoyed with her as she would not pay much attention to household work and would be frequently found lying alone in her room. Even after the mother-in-law went back, patient kept on continuing using the ﬂuid. Gradually over the past 1 year, the frequency of altercations with hus- band and coworkers increased over minor matters. One week back when the patient disclosed her ﬂuid inhalation to the