The Effect of Drug Addiction on Families - Case Study Example

THE EFFECT OF DRUG ADDICTION ON FAMILIES Introduction In the 2007 study on substance abuse conducted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, out ofevery 100 high school seniors, 42 had tried marijuana, 72 had tried alcohol, 15 had abused prescription drugs, 3 had tried methamphetamines, 2 had tried heroin, and 8 had experimented with cocaine. (Sherwood) Several of them had tried drugs as early as 12 or 13 years old (Natinal Institute on Drug Abuse, or NIDA). Many of these children claim to have tried the substance only once; but for every concerned parent, once is once too much. The drug problem, however, is not confined to teen-agers and the adventurous youth. There are moms like Charlotte Sanders (2006) who experimented with drugs at 16 but took methamphetamines as a regular habit in her twenties in order to cope with the pressures of motherhood; or Lynn Smith, who resorted to drugs as an actress in New York; or even Mike Shirley, a father of a family. In 2004, more than 3.5 million persons who were 18 years old or over admitted that they had, at some point in their life, taken at least one injection of an illegal drug. (National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), 2006). The NDIC also reports that drug abuse in the US is cost it $181 billion in 2002 alone, and that amount continues to rise every year. Physiological Effects of Drug Addiction The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) defines drug addiction as “a chronic, relapsing brain disease that is characterized by compulsive drug seeking and use, despite harmful consequences.” It must be understood that, under this definition, specialized agencies such as the NIDA and the NIDC classify alcoholism and smoking as forms of substance abuse classifiable as drug addiction. Regular use of alcohol and nicotine, the so-called “legal drugs,” are prone to abuse with the same resultant effects as narcotic abuse. Also, prescription drugs are also prone to abuse when the user administers them in the inappropriate amounts, or resorts to their regular use even when the reason or medical condition that required their use no longer exists. Recently, more teens have been experimenting with combinations of prescription drugs that increases the danger of fatalities due to toxic reactions of drugs with each other. (Buddy T., 2007). Rather than being viewed as mere socially deviant behaviour, drug addiction is viewed by the medical community as a disease. Drugs alter the brain’s structure and the way it works, usually with permanent effects when left untreated. Initially, the individual embarks on his first drug trip out of curiosity and peer-group pressure. With the exhilarating experience of this first “high”, subsequent resort to drugs is for various purposes: to feel good, to escape depression, or to cope with demands of an excessive workload. The typical drug user consciously and voluntarily partakes of the substance at the start, aware of its extreme effects, but with the misguided confident that he has the capability of stopping at any time he wishes to. This is a gross underestimation of the power of the drug, and an overestimation of his power to effectively exercise control, which is often the first thing to go. NIDA reports that brain imaging studies confirms that drugs alter the areas of the brain responsible for judgment, decision making, learning, memory, and control. Scientists surmise that this explains the destructive behaviour of long-term drug users. Scientists also estimated that the reasons why some persons are more readily addicted to substance abuse is that about 40% to 60% of a person’s vulnerability is accounted for by genetic factors. This includes “the effects of environment on gene expression and function.” (NIDA) Drugs are chemicals that mainly attack the workings of the brain’s communication system by interfering with how nerve cells receive, process, and send information. Drugs like heroin and marijuana mimic the chemical structure of a natural neurotransmitter, fooling the receptors and activating the nerve cells, causing abnormal messages to be sent through the network. Other drugs like amphetamine or cocaine cause the release of excessively high levels of neurotransmitters, disrupting communication channels and abnormally amplifying messages. Drugs also flood the system with dopamine, a neurotransmitter that stimulates emotion, motivation, and feelings of pleasure. The resulting sense of euphoria is that effect which drug users seek in successively increasing their frequency of drug ingestion. With long-term abuse, drugs wreak their debilitating effect. The brain adjusts to compensate for extreme surges in dopamine by producing less of this neurotransmitter through normal means. This reduces the number of receptors, and the drug user’s ability to experience pleasure is reduced, plunging him into fits of depression. The result is that the user resorts to administering his substance more often and in greater quantities just to feel the effects of an increase in his dopamine level (i.e., he develops tolerance for the drug). Thus, greater and greater harm is done to the brain’s receptors, until his ability to think, decide, remember, and function rationally is permanently impaired, and long-term chemical damage to the vital organs of the body becomes irreversible. Criminal Consequences of Drug Abuse The law does not distinguish between a teen-age drug offender and one who is an adult. It is thus possible for a minor to be meted out criminal penalties for drug use, for selling drugs, or other drug-related crimes. Teen-agers who have a drug abuse problem tend to have an increasing need for money in order to support their habit. Sometimes, they resort to the illegal commerce of prohibited drugs, taking that big step from being a drug user to being a drug pusher. Many times, they resort to other means such as theft and robbery to earn money. Often they victimize their own family and relatives, swindling them with lies and depriving them of their hard-earned saving with the pretense of some seemingly legitimate reason. According to sociological studies on the matter, teenagers guilty of committing felonies had been using drugs for 4 to 6 months prior to the commission of the crime. (Sherwood) Other crimes such as domestic violence, assault, burglary, and identity theft also significantly result from drug abuse. (NDIC, 2006). Other than crimes, other legal violations are directly related to substance abuse, one of the most common of which is driving while intoxicated. Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) determined that alcohol and alcohol-related causes were involved in as many as 62 percent of traffic fatalities during prom night in 1999. (“Driving Under the Influence of Alcohol or Drugs”). The Social Cost Other than obvious medical problems (poor health, sickness, ultimately death), there is a social burden associated with drug abuse. The NDIC reports that: 1. The spread of AIDS is directly associated with needle users. Individuals who contract AIDS in this manner have a statistically lower chance of survival than AIDS sufferers who got the disease through other means. 2. The cost to social services is substantial, since the state has to shoulder the cost of caring for children of drug users. Parents who abuse drugs themselves usually neglect or abandon their children as a direct consequence of their habit. Furthermore, significant costs are associated with additional training and special protocols for welfare workers to attend to children exposed in particular to methamphetamine. 3. Other costs to the state are imposed in the form of the seizure and cleanup of laboratories where drug (especially methamphetamines) take place. NDIC reports that the cost to cleaning up one laboratory amounts to $1,900. Yearly, almost 10,000 laboratories on average are reportedly seized, bringing the annual cost just for the clean-up to more than 19 million dollars annually. This is above and beyond the additional costs incurred in law enforcement and criminal prosecution of those who run these production facilities. 4. The loss of productivity due to dismissal from work and school is a further social cost. Seldom do young drug addicts complete their education, opting instead to drop out before they graduation. The use of drugs, though it begins casually, progresses from mere experiment to -habitual use, until the ingestion of the drug becomes the overriding obsession of the user. To the drug addict, nothing else matters except feeding his habit. His interest in school and work gradually wanes until they lose their significance entirely. 5. More than the monetary cost, there is a psychological and health cost to other segments of society who are exposed to the effects of drug use, particularly methamphetamine production and distribution. Children, law enforcers, emergency personnel, and the communities surrounding clandestine laboratories have been exposed to chemicals, injured and killed in the process of securing these sites and neutralizing their operations. (NDIC, 2006) The Family Pays the Ultimate Price. The implications on the family are clear. A child whose performance in school suffers will tend to drop out, and that is usually a source of great enmity within the family. His judgement impaired by the debilitating effects of the drugs, the child will exhibit defiance toward authority figures, It tends to set parents and child against one another, and cause a rift between them that may never mend. It is regrettable that at this time when the child needs the support of his family most, his drug-crazed condition will incite him to rebel against them and push them away – or, conversely, the occasion for the parents, offended by his disrespect and rebellion, to cast their child from the home. Inevitably, the child who is exiled from the home seeks the companionship of others who condone the habit and, like him, indulges in it. They become his adopted family, and through them is led to a life of crime and social deviancy. The influence of one’s associates cannot be discounted, as even the police rely on this to work the drug supply network. As Charlotte Sanders, whose story is related below, said, the authorities knew she was a user and pusher “because of the circle of people I ran with.” (Sanders, 2006). Also in the story of Lynn Smith to be related later, she wrote “Looking back on my old friends, I see how we were all so similar, not just in our drug use but in a deeper sense. We were all broken in some way…a crowd of lost souls wanting so badly to be a part of something.” Supposing the drug addict were an adult, the repercussions on his family may even be more devastating. Parents form the foundation on which family life is built; they set the environment in which children thrive and prepare for adulthood. A parent who gives up his job because of his habit also reneges on his duty to his family. There is no telling how far the ill-effects this could have on the emotional and psychological well-being of his children. In the story earlier alluded to in this paper, Charlotte Sanders shared her story on the web about her plunge into drug-induced depression. A mother at the age of 20 who went on to have two daughters, she felt that the demands of motherhood were too difficult to bear without “help”. She resorted to taking methamphetamines, and before long she felt energized to accomplish all the tasks associated with housework – cooking, cleaning, laundry and ironing, as well as child rearing. “I felt like super mom,” she said, at times staying up for four days straight. But when the drug wore off, she was enervated and sick, so she resorted to repeated use of the drug, concealing her habit from her husband. Before long she was selling the drug to make money for her habit, suffered a debilitating weight loss that caused her to withdraw from social life. This progressed to a neglect of her children, until finally the police needed to intervene. Charlotte speaks of the pitiable conditions she subjected her children to, who at numerous times she heard cry in terror and plead to the police, “Please, not my mommy!” when they came to arrest her. Such memories haunt her now, she says, but at the time she was indifferent to them. (Sanders, 2006). Another former drug addict by the name of Mike Shirley recounts his plunge into meth addiction and alcohol abuse. At the height of his substance abuse, he even resorted to selling drugs to support his habit. In the late nineties, it had come to point when his wife and children could no longer bear living with his habit. Mike lost his family, home, job and possessions, but a long time he blamed the addiction as if it were a separate thing from himself. It was only when he hit rock bottom and a feeling of utter despair that he acknowledged the need to change. Through the process of spiritual conversion and renewal, Mike found the inspiration to defeat his addiction and seek rehabilitation. By June 16, 2000, Mike was “clean” of the drugs and alcohol; since then he has remarried his wife, regained the love and trust of his children, and has returned to his home and his former job. He is also active in Christian ministry, and through it keeps constantly in mind what he has nearly lost, in order to guard against possible relapse. (Niblett, 2009). A third account is that of Lynn Smith. Lynn was an atypical teen as far as drug abuse was concerned. She was a straight-A model student who was actively involved in extracurricular activities. She was popular and emulated by her peers. It was after high school, when she moved to New York to study acting, that she was exposed to pot and cocaine use, a seemingly natural behaviour in the big city. Her desire for social acceptance motivated her beyond these drugs to the use of Ecstacy, which changed her life profoundly. “Complete and utter bliss”, as she described her first encounter with the drug, eventually led to loss of appetite, sleepless nights, then eventually hallucinations and panic attacks for no reason. Work suffered, and a healthy ambition for success gave way to a general indifference except for getting a fix. Finally, feeling the onset of what she thought was a heart attack, she called her mother to pick her up in the middle of the night. Hospitalization and a two-week confinement in the psychiatric ward commenced her difficult uphill battle to regain her sanity. In retrospect, she says in regret, “Worst of all, I know I did this to myself. I hear people say Ecstasy is a harmless, happy drug. There’s nothing happy about the way that ‘harmless’ drug chipped away at my life. Ecstasy took my strength, my motivation, my dreams, my friends, my apartment, my money, and most of all, my sanity…[But] I’m one of the lucky ones. I’ve been given a second chance…” (Smith) The above three stories are important for this report. Oftentimes, the problem of substance abuse, including smoking and alcoholism, is reduced to statistics, to numbers and percentages on a piece of paper. This downplays the real story, of lives disrupted and emotional pain and suffering. The recounting of life stories can only approximate the magnitude of the tragedy that addiction brings to families, but it is through such testimonies that hopefully many other families could be spared this ordeal. Prevention and the Road to Recovery As to treatment, medical research is being undertaken to better understand the physiological and psychological implications of drug addiction. Other than efforts by the scientific community, social safety nets are being cast by both governments and NGOs. International networks of law enforcers work harder to stem the global traffic of drugs and the syndicates that proliferate because of it. But more and more, parents and social groups have taken the lead in stopping drug addiction in the home. Parental and home influence cannot be overstressed. Where teens are concerned, it appears that open, two-way communication between parents and children is a strong deterrent to the teen-age substance abuse. In a report by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, the increase in incidences of drug abuse correlates positively with a 12-percent drop in the number of parents who discussed drugs with their children, falling from 55 percent in 2005 to only 49 percent in 2006. The report cited that the parents felt ill-equipped to deal on the subject with their children. (Buddy T., 2007) In the absence of such information and discussion from their parents, curious teens turn to their peers and often get the wrong advice. Hands down, communication is the foremost preventive measure against drug addiction. Besides the home, support groups, community and neighbourhood associations, and school administrations have come to see the need to systematically address the drug abuse problem, and have began to institute programs to address it. The diagram that follows, culled from the NIDA report (2006), outlines some of the substance abuse risk factors and their domains, and the corresponding protective factors which are addressed by the family, school and community. Source: NIDA, 2006 The above diagram indicates that there are risk factors that may be addressed by the individual, others by the family, peer group, school or community. On a wider scale, there are other factors that government must resolve, such as the manner by which organized crime is able to operate with impunity in putting drugs on the street. What is apparent is that a concerted effort is required to finally solve the problem of substance abuse. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. More than a trite expression, this describes the best strategy ever to solve substance abuse –that the best way to stop it is never to start. Conclusion Drug abuse is not only the problem of the individual or his immediate family, but a social disease that demands the attention of the authorities and our institutions. The best time to prevent it is during adolescence, because it is at this early age that an individual normally engages in the formation of values and the redefinition of how he views society and his environment. Experimentation is a natural tendency, and it is up to parents to constructively direct this tendency to the better welfare of the adolescent. Teens are still in the process of developing their ability to make decisions and form judgments, and parents’ loving but firm guidance in this area, though seemingly resented by the child, will actually be in his own good. As this paper suggests, the key to successful parental-child collaboration is open and constructive communication. Through this, it is hoped that families become strong enough to withstand the destructive effects of substance abuse. REFERENCES Buddy T, “Fewer Parents Talk With Teens About Drugs.” About.com Guide to Alcoholism, Aug. 23, 2007. April 28, 2009. “Driving Under the Influence of Alcohol or Drugs.” Family Guide. April 28, 2009. “Drug Abuse and Addiction: Signs, Symptoms, Effects and what you can do.” April 28, 2009 National Drug Intelligence Center, “The Impact of Drugs on Society”. National Drug Threat Assessment 2006. January 2006. April 28, 2009. Niblett, Jason. “Jones County man drops heavy drug use, turns to helping others.” Laurel Leader Call, Jan. 26, 2009. April 28, 2009 “NIDA News”. National Institute on Drug Abuse. April 28, 2009 < http://www.drugabuse.gov/ scienceofaddiction/addiction.html Sanders, Charlotte. “I Felt Like Super Mom.” The Partnership for a Drug-Free America. June 5, 2006. Sherwood, Chris. Effects of Drug Addiction in Adolescents. April 28, 2009. Smith, Lynn, “Agony from Ecstasy.” Check Yourself. April 28, 2009. Read More