Drug-taker embarrassed about securing work (5)
I believe the answer is:
doper
'drug-taker' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this defines the answer.
'embarrassed about securing work' is the wordplay.
'embarrassed' becomes 'red' (I've seen this before).
'about' shows that the letters should be reversed in order.
'securing' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'work' becomes 'op' (abbreviation for opus).
'red' back-to-front is 'der'.
'der' enclosing 'op' is 'DOPER'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for doper that I've seen before include "One who administers illegal substances to animals" , "drugs cheat" , "One administering an illegal drug" .)