Abuse, Abuse, and More Abuse

What I liked most about this article was the fact that it tied in with the material I had actually been learning in class. This article talked about how, throughout society, substance abuse intertwines with poverty and child abuse. I enjoyed that the article talked about substance abuse and poverty along with substance abuse and child abuse, and also provides some solutions to both.

The article made a very valid point that just because people are in poverty does not mean that they do drugs, but one reason they may be in poverty could be because of an addiction to drugs. This addiction will cause people to lose their jobs and lose their families. But a big misconception about people in poverty is that they all use drugs or have some type of substance abuse problem. I myself have lived in poverty my entire life with a single father but never because of drug addictions. That goes to show that just because a family lives in poverty does not necessarily mean there is a substance addiction that led to that family relying on government and state funds.

Another huge thing that this article talked about was just how much these substance abusers do more than abuse drugs but abuse their children as well and even mentally abuse themselves from these addictions. The fact that these drugs alter a person’s mind and mood shows most within their family first. If there are children involved they will be the first to get the wrath of their parent’s addictions especially if they are unable to get their addicton dose. According to the article, “children that grow up with an abusive addict for a parent are more likely to have poor self-image, self-destructive behaviors, hidden fear, and greater risk of substance abuse themselves someday”.

This can lead to a cycle that just like poverty happens every day, and unless there is some type of worldwide illegalization against these drugs and just completely banned there will always be a demand for these products which ultimately leads to the supply.