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.

Problematic Parents

The article, Children of Addicted Parents, from hopenetworks.org, gives information and statistics about children living in homes with addicted parents. One interesting thing mentioned is that alcoholism and other drug addictions have been known to run in families. This is because children of addicted parents are at a higher risk for drug abuse than other children. This connection between a child’s drug use in relation to their parents’ drug use is because of genetic factors and because of the influences of the parents’ attitudes towards drug use.

Addicted parents are often unable to provide the structure and discipline needed by children. The children in these families are often surrounded by increased family conflict involving emotional or physical violence. Many of these children are taken away from their addicted parents and forced into foster care as a way to protect them. This detachment from their parents frequently results in symptoms of depression and anxiety and the children often have anger issues because they feel abandoned.

If a child stays in the home with addicted parents, they commonly experience greater physical and mental health problems which lead to higher health and welfare costs. These children also have high rates of behavior problems because they often “act out” for attention or end up addicted to drugs themselves because they were not taught to avoid drugs.

The article has many statistics to support its statements, but since statistics can easily be misleading, I did not include them. The article itself can be found in its entirety here.