Substance Abuse and Domestic Violence - Essay Example

Substance Abuse and Domestic Violence The following points outline the contents and discussions presented on this paper: Introduction to concepts: how domestic violence occurs and what are the acts of maltreatment involved. Major areas of concern for the prevalence of domestic violence are presented by the National Violence Statistics. Alcohol abuse has always been misinterpreted as the cause of domestic violence but review of some literatures showed that alcohol drinking is just an excuse of the abuser’s violent behaviors. On the contrary, the coexistence of substance abuse to domestic violence was supported by other researchers, showing evidences of high prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) where there is alcohol and other substance abuse involved. Behavioral characteristics of the abuser and the abused characters involved in IPV are psychologically analyzed, presenting the various factors and reasons why abused women are often misunderstood to be resilient to withstand the abusive relationship. Conclusion and identification of a viable solution that would minimize the prevalence of domestic violence in the society. Domestic violence correlated to substance abuse is not a new issue in the society and does not just occur in America but also in other countries, races, ethnicities, cultures, religions, and classes regardless of gender and age. Alcohol and other drug abuse coexisting in the intimate partner violence (IPV) cases had been a major health and social concern in the United States that has been funded and addressed with by the government to reduce its prevalence. Though some literatures conveyed a negative association of substance use/abuse to domestic violence since there were also cases of battery that do not involved an intoxicated, yet violent partner, there were studies that showed the connection of domestic violence to substance abuse in several ways. This paper explores the relatedness of substance abuse to domestic violence, focusing particularly on IPV, and presents the psychological analyses of the abuser and the abused characters involved in IPV to better understand why this dilemma continuously exists in the society in spite of the many efforts to stop its prevalence. Domestic violence occurs when there is an abusive pattern of behaviors of a controlling partner or family member in an intimate relationship in terms of physical, mental, sexual, emotional, psychological, or financial maltreatment to the other partner or family member (National Domestic Violence Hotline n.d.). It can happen to anyone regardless of age, gender, race, sexual orientation or religion and maltreatment may be in the form of battering, beating, intimidating, terrorizing, frightening, manipulating, humiliating, blaming, hurting, or injuring someone in the context of a relationship (National Violence Hotline n.d.). Stalking, as well as cyber-stalking (applicable to cyber intimate relationship common nowadays), are also considered as a form of intimate partner abuse (Dryden-Edwards & Stoppler 2011, p. 1). This study focuses on domestic violence correlated to substance abuse, particularly alcohol and other drug, with women as victims of violence, per se, presenting evidences of its prevalence. Furthermore, the recent status of domestic violence, according to the National Violence Statistics (2011), includes: (1) One woman in the U.S. gets beaten or assaulted every 9 seconds, domestic violence occurs to one in every three women around the world, beaten, forced into sex, or abused in any form by a dominating family member; (2) The major cause of women injury is related to domestic violence and more than three women in the U.S. are killed by their husbands, intimate partners, or boyfriends everyday; (3) Domestic violence in 10 countries where 55 to 95 percent of physically abused women had not contacted any support organizations or shelters, nor called the police for help; (4) Medical and health care services costs allocated to reduce cases of intimate partner violence in the U.S. amounted to more than $5.8 billion annually, while incurrence of productivity losses is about $1.8 billion per year (Domestic Violence Statistics 2011). Consequently, it has always been believed by many people that substance abuse is the major cause of domestic violence but this was negated by the experts, though there were evidences that these two issues have statistical correlation. The Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights (2003) cited Bennett’s literature that in reality, substance abuse does not directly triggers the perpetrators to become violent but rather use this as an excuse for their abusive and violent behavior. This was strengthened by the recent study on alcohol involvement in intimate partner violence authored by McKinney, Caetano, Rodriguez, and Okoro (2010), where, only 30.2% of couples who reported IPV revealed alcohol involvement while those who revealed no alcohol involvement was 69.8%, implying that there is no association between alcohol involvement to IPV. However, the findings suggest that alcohol use increases the risk for IPV with significance to female alcohol use in determining IPV’s severity (McKinney, Caetano, Rodriguez, and Okoro 2010). On the contrary, evidence of correlation between substance abuse and domestic violence was supported by some research and studies. In the study of Busch-Armendariz, DiNitto, Bell, and Bohman (2010) aimed to determine the impact of perpetrators’ substance use/abuse on violence occurring before and after the assault, 129 females who experienced sexual assaults in their intimate relationship were investigated. Found out that regardless of the kind of relationship, location of sexual assault, or the victim’s ethnicity, “perpetrators in active alcohol and drug use during the assault more likely became violent, exhibiting behaviors such as using a weapon to threat or harm the abused partner, hitting, kicking, and other physical assaults that cause injury, leading the female victims to experience absence from work and neglected duties at home and other social engagements” (Busch-Armendariz, DiNitto, Bell, & Bohman 2010). The complexity of correlation between domestic violence and substance abuse, in spite of the latter’s implied significance had led Foran and O’Leary (2008) to consider not just problem drinking as a factor of IPV but also included jealousy and anger control as variables that may predict physical aggression of perpetrators against their partners. Jealousy problems (induced or as a personality trait) was found to be a critical provoker associated to problem drinking and IPV, whereas, anger control problem has no significant association to the two (Foran & O’Leary 2008). Other risk factors for IPV, apart from substance abuse, identified in the study of Taft, Doron-LaMarca, Suvak, O’Farrell, Panuzio, Gagnon, and Murphy (2010) were antisocial personality characteristics, adjustment to relationship factors, and anger. In connection to IPV prevalence, psychological analyses of the situation and behaviors of the two characters involved in IPV (the abuser and the abused partner) is important to better understand this continuously existing dilemma. In a domestic violence situation, the abuser is usually considered as the person at fault and though it can occur in any gender type, most studies reported that men are often the abuser in the intimate relationship and women are the abused or the victims. At times the victim may be aware of the existence of maltreatment and suppresses her contradiction to such problem because of many reasons but oftentimes she tends to suffer in repression, believing falsely that the abusive behavior of her partner is a justification of her mistakes. For instance, the woman may think that she deserves the beating of her husband after forgetting to prepare her husband’s dinner when he arrived home from work. She tries to understand and makes excuses to the maltreatment she receives from her partner because she cannot control the situation anymore and where after every tolerance she endures is a hope to bring back the used-to-be normal situation of the relationship. While the abuser conceals his abusive behavior through drinking alcohol and using other drug to justify his violent actions, the victim develops fear and becomes overly cautious to keep him from getting angry, frightened of his beating, battering, insults, intimidations, etc. She does not have the freedom to open up her real feelings about the relationship for it is his feelings and reactions that matters most over her own. The issue that most women victims do not seek help was contradicted by Susan McGee (2005) as she pointed out that, though it may take quite some time of tolerance, many abused women dot not stay in an abusive intimate relationship, evidenced by always full shelters and increasing members of support groups. Some of the reasons why battered women prolonged staying in the relationship in spite of domestic violence are because of: (1) environmental barriers (such as limited or not having access to safe shelters and healthcare services, high cost for childcare, ineffective police protection, high cost of legal representation, etc.); (2) psychological terrorism use by the abusive partner and some brainwashing techniques; (3) believing that there are still ways to revive the relationship (such as counseling or therapy); wishful thinking that one day his behavior will change and the violence will end; (4) they cannot afford the cost of achieving justice; (5) the children; (6) insufficient knowledge and information on what to do; (7) society’s notion about battered women as the ones who initiate violence or provoke their partners to temper; (8) support isolation by the controlling partner; (9) believing and holding on to love; (10) fear of threats by the abusive partner; (11) addiction to the situation or coerced to use alcohol or some drug; (12) religious beliefs upholding the sanctity of marriage; (13) some other personal beliefs such as acceptance of a gender-bias society (McGee 2005). Hence, substance abuse may not be directly associated as the main cause of domestic violence but instead, a way of masking the real reason of the perpetrator’s violent behavior that could be brought about by an antisocial personality type, jealousy, or inability to control anger. There are many factors why it takes some time for abused women to seek help and while the government agencies, shelters, and other support groups encourage these victims to get out from the violent relationship, batterers are also ought to be treated through rehabilitation or therapy treatment. Promotion of awareness and distribution of services and assistance in strategic areas of the country is a viable way to encourage the IPV victims who are oppressed, yet in the depth of suppressive and repressive defenses. References Busch-Armendariz, N.B., DiNitto, D.M., Bell, H., & Bohman, T. (2010, September). Sexual assault perpetrators’ alcohol and drug use: The likelihood of concurrent violence and post-sexual assault outcomes for women victims. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 42(3), 393-399. Domestic Violence Statistics. (2011). Domestic violence statistics. Retrieved from http://domesticviolencestatistics.org/domestic-violence-statistics/ Dryden-Edwards, R., & Stoppler, M.C. (2011). Domestic violence (1-7). MedicineNet.com. Retrieved from http://www.medicinenet.com/domestic_violence/article.htm Foran, H.M., & O’Leary, K.D. (2007). Problem drinking, jealousy, and anger control: Variables predicting physical aggression against a partner. Journal of Family Violence, 23, 141-148. doi: 10.1007/s10896-007-9136-5 McGee, S.G. (2005). 20 Reasons why she stays: A guide for those who want to help battered women, 1-20. Retrieved from http://stopviolence.com/domviol/WhySheSometimesStays.pdf McKinney, C.M., Caetano, R., Rodriguez, L.A., & Okoro, N. (2010). Does alcohol involvement increase the severity of intimate partner violence? Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 34(4), 655-658. doi: 10.1111/j.1530-0277.2009.01134.x National Domestic Violence Hotline. (n.d.). Get educated: What is domestic violence? Retrieved from http://www.thehotline.org/get-educated/what-is-domestic-violence/ Taft, C.T., Doron-LaMarca, S., Suvak, M.K., O’Farrell, T.J.., Panuzio, J., Gagnon, D.R., & Murphy, C.M. (2010). Longitudinal risk factors for intimate partner violence among men in treatment for alcohol use disorders. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 78(6), 924-935. doi: 10.1037/a0021093 Teen Challenges of Southern California. (2011). Substance abuse and domestic violence: Overview. Retrieved from http://www.teenchallenge.org/site/c.inKLKROuHqE/b.5611131/k.4596/Substance_Abuse__Domestic_Violence.htm Read More