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Effect of substance abuse on family
Effect of substance abuse on family
Opioid use, addiction, and overdoses: an essay
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I was fairly young at the time, over my grandparents with my mom. I’m just sitting there on the couch when I start to hear my mom screaming at my Uncle Nick. Next thing you know he comes running down, my mom is right behind him, she starts beating him, not because he anything malicious towards her but because he had started using drugs again. The next day my mom brought him to rehab. Uncle Nick has been an addict since before he was twenty, only problem is he’s not even the only one in my family that is an addict, nor do I have the only family that this affects in Philadelphia. This epidemic is a terrible ordeal for Philadelphia that city officials must take action. Last year alone there was an almost thirty percent increase in fatal drug overdoses with the total being over 900 and more than 80% of these deaths being opioid related. Fatal overdoses have mainly been found in the age range of 35 to 59, with males having triple the cases than that of women.
On the typical day, over 90 people will die at the hand of opioid abuse in America alone (National). In fact, as of 2014, nearly 2 million Americans were dependent and abusing opioids. The Opioid Crisis has affected America and its citizens in various ways, including health policy, health care, and the life in populous areas. Due to the mass dependence and mortality, the crisis has become an issue that must be resolved in all aspects.
The documentary Heroin Cape Cod, USA focused on the widespread abuse of pain medication such as Vicodin, Percocet, and Oxycodone that has led the U.S. into the rise of an opiate addiction. Many of the users within the video explained that it doesn’t matter where you go, there is no stopping, and you can’t just get high once. Instead, those who do it want that high forever. I think that this is a very important concept that those who aren’t addicted to drugs need to understand, no matter how hard it is to. The documentary featured many addicts including Marissa who first popped pills when she was 14 years old, Daniel who stated he started by snorting pixie sticks, and Arianna who started smoking weed and drinking before age 12. Additionally, the documentary interviewed Ryan and Cassie. These addicts explained that in Cape Cod you either work and you’re normal, or you do drugs.
Three months before her hearing, Christel overdosed on her mother’s pills. Before her overdose, she wrote a note to God demanding his help to guide her in the right way because she feels that her life is unimportant and useless. In conclusion, it is known that the system operates from cradle to the grave. Each of these individuals all have the same mindset of “if nobody cares why should I?” Beecher Terrace is a high crime-rate neighborhood, where all the individuals either lived or grew up in.
In Righteous Dopefiend, Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg provide a powerful and poignant account of the culture and challenges faced by homeless heroin addicts in San Francisco. Numerous factors, including structural violence, affect the health and quality of life held by the addicts creating a unique set of challenges for health care providers and law enforcement agencies. The problem of heroin addiction is not one-dimensional and many issues go into creating a “syndemic” (Sobo 193). Heroin addiction deserves to be looked at from many angles so that effective solutions can be introduced to help those affected, including the unique community of the Edgewater homeless.
We are introduced to the story of Matt Schoonover, a young man who had recently obtained his masters degree from Yale. He had grown up “attending a Christian private school, and a prominent church” (2). Matt had begun abusing pills, though he was originally prescribed them by a doctor. Even after undergoing detoxification and then rehab, Matt could not curb his addiction. “Unable to afford street Oxycontin, Matt switched to black tar heroin, brought in from Mexico” (3). We are told how this is unfortunately quite common. People who are prescribed pills often end up abusing them; and once they can no longer afford the high prices of OxyContin they switch to black tar heroin. This transition is often what leads to overdoses, as black tar heroin is extremely deadly and overdoses like Matt’s are common. This is just one story out of tens of thousands of similar stories that all have the same ending. The opiate crisis is a problem that few recognize because it crept up on a majority of Americans. Young people throughout the nation were not using drugs in public, but privately in their own
Frequently, heroin addiction becomes a physiological dependence on the drug, leaving users constantly in need for more when coming off. This is refer to as ‘dopesick’ to many of the users in the drug world. In Edgewater the need for heroin was a never ending cycle. Daily life was based on where and how to get the next fix. Psychical sickness such as when frank and Carter explain it, bone aches, vomiting, uncontrollable bowel movements, the feeling of spiders crawling through your bones, and the worst part is the anxiety (Bourgois and Schonberg, 81-82).While, the withdraw symptoms may not kill a person they are horrible to suffer through. With the chronic heroin use and the unsanitary living conditions, the homeless also face ailments such as, “Abscesses, skin rashes, cuts, bruises, broken bones, flues, colds, opiate withdrawals, and the potential for violent assault” (Bourgois and Schonberg, 5). When these cases become extreme they can end them up in the hospital or worse, due to the medical system the homeless postpone getting it looked at and will sub come to, death. The issue that Bourgois and Schonberg expose is the deep stigma in the structures of our medical
Almost two years ago I was that suffering junkie and was in a treatment facility where I was then introduced to the program of Narcotics Anonymous. By working this program I have been able to stay clean for almost a year and a half now. I support this organization because I believe in what it stands for, anyone can stop using and find a new way to live. They don’t treat the dirty, homeless, junkie like a hopeless lost cause. They see that junkie as a man or women in pain who needs help. I come from a long line of addicts and have seen family and friends lost to the disease of addiction. They’ve ended up dead by overdose or taking a gun to their head. It’s tragic but these losses remind me that I could be next. Narcotics Anonymous taught me that I never have to use again, even if I want to. I am no longer ashamed of my past and the decisions of the people around me because this fellowship gave me the courage and support I needed to change. I can't change what I did while I was using, but I am responsible for my recovery and what I do
“While we all did some things that were in poor taste, not all of us resorted to such desperate measures. Sure, some did, but not all of us. This has made society view drug addicts virtually as lesser beings. The effect it has had in my life is a loss of trust by others who are aware of my past addiction issues” (treatment4addiction.com) Many people see drug addicts as lowlifes who need to stop doing drugs and believe that it is easy to do so. They believe that all drug addicts are scum, that they are not people like everybody else. They do not see it as a disease and because of this they tend to completely shut out the family member or friend suffering from this. In an interview with PocosPeroLocos.FM Williams
Your family dentist might snort coke before he brushes his teeth in the morning, how else would he deal with crying kids all day? In fact, drug cartels make most of their profits from rich white folks, believe it or not. Sadly, the only time you hear about some sort of drug problem is when the news is announcing yet another young black man has been shot dead for having a gram of weed in his pocket. The reality of drugs is quite the contrary to what pop culture portrays. It forgets, or maybe even refuses, to acknowledge the heartache and distress that drugs bring to an individuals life. When you live your life having a loved one that struggles with drug addiction, it’s hard and sometimes frustrating accepting the way drugs are thrown around so loosely in today’s society. Just last week I found out a friend of mine from high school had died from a heroin overdose. All I could think of was how they probably knew nothing about the harsh reality of drugs; only how popular culture portrays the use of them.
“The fact that war is the word we use for almost everything—on terrorism, drugs, even poverty—has certainly helped to desensitize us to its invocation; if we wage wars on everything, how bad can they be?”- Glenn Greenwald. The use of drugs through out the United States has gotten worse and worse every year, and I know that in the U.S. it is both a health problem and a crime problem. But I feel like that we should treat the abuse of illegal drugs as a matter of public health. It should be treated as a matter of public health over a matter of criminal justice because we can help people that abuse drugs and are addicted. Also well be able to get their lives on track so they won’t have to use drugs again which makes dealers go away because no one is buying their drugs anymore.” The origins and nature of the appeal of anti drug claims must be confronted if we are ever to understand how “drug problems” are constructed in the U.S.”(pg.92) –The Social Construction of Drug Scares
I loved my cousin. I looked up too him for everything. He was my best friend. To me, he was my brother. Nothing could separate us or at least that’s what I thought. In 2003, my 21-year-old cousin went to a bar and drank heavily. He was super drunk. He couldn’t walk straight. His buddies helped him walk to his car. I didn’t think this was a smart idea because he had no control of himself with his body. I believe when the cops used their breathalyzer, his alcohol level was at a .2. The consumption of alcohol that is legal is a .07. Anything higher you would have gotten a DUI. If only he called my aunt saying he needed a ride home that none of this would have happened He drives home and never makes it back. He gotten into a car collision with another car. His car was totaled. The other guys car was much worse than his. Both my cousin and the person in the other car was rushed to the hospital. They both needed surgery right away. My cousin did not suffer much. With the crash, he lost one sight of his eye and lost half of his sight on his other eye. He had broken ribs from the impact. The other guy suffering a concussion and internal bleeding. During the surgery, the guy passed away. When my cousin heard about this he cried into tears. He knew he was going to be arrested but he took a life away. He also lost his driver’s license. This was devastating. As soon as he recovered from the hospital he was arrested. My heart fell as I am seeing this. I
Every year, 2.6 million people in the United States suffer from opioid abuse and of that 2.6 million, 276,000 are adolescents, and this problem is only escalating. An individual’s physical and emotional health suffers as well as their personal lives as they lose employment, friends, family, and hope. Opioid addiction begins with the addictive aspects of the drug. People easily become hooked on the relieving effects of the opioids and suffer withdrawal symptoms if they stop using the drug completely because their nerve cells become accustomed to the drug and have difficulty functioning without it; yet the addiction to the drug is only one aspect of the complex problem. The stigma about opioid addiction has wide-reaching negative effects as it discourages people with opioid abuse problems from reaching out.
Children of drug abusive parents enter into a world with a handicap; a life of stability is unfamiliar to these innocent children. Addicts do whatever is necessary to get their next fix even if it means exploiting their child. Even when a child is removed from the immediate danger and go to live with other family members, the emotional scars remain. These children are bound to act out and behave in an aggressive manner due to the hardships they have faced. If these children do not receive help through counseling or other means, the cycle of addiction will continue. Our capacity as humans to love, to assist, our connection with each other is enough reason to care about the lives of these children. It could be someone you know.
The rate of death due to prescription drug abuse in the U.S. has escalated 313 percent over the past decade. According to the Congressional Quarterly Transcription’s article "Rep. Joe Pitt Holds a Hearing on Prescription Drug Abuse," opioid prescription drugs were involved in 16,650 overdose-caused deaths in 2010, accounting for more deaths than from overdoses of heroin and cocaine. Prescribed drugs or painkillers sometimes "condemn a patient to lifelong addiction," according to Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This problem not only affects the lives of those who overdose but it affects the communities as well due to the convenience of being able to find these items in drug stores and such. Not to mention the fact that the doctors who prescribe these opioids often tend to misuse them as well. Abusing these prescribed drugs can “destroy dreams and abort great destinies," and end the possibility of the abuser to have a positive impact in the community.
Drug abuse dates as far back as the Biblical era, so it is not a new phenomenon. “The emotional and social damage and the devastation linked to drugs and their use is immeasurable.” The ripple of subversive and detrimental consequences from alcoholism, drug addictions, and addictive behavior is appalling. Among the long list of effects is lost productivity, anxiety, depression, increased crime rate, probable incarceration, frequent illness, and premature death. The limitless consequences include the destruction to personal development, relationships, and families (Henderson 1-2). “Understandably, Americans consider drug abuse to be one of the most serious problems” in the fabric of society. And although “addiction is the result of voluntary drug use, addiction is no longer voluntary behavior, it’s uncontrollable behavior,” says Alan Leshner, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (Torr 12-13).