5-2 Final Project Milestone Three-Creating Connections PDF

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Creating Connections

5-2 Final Project Milestone Three:

Creating Connections

Heathre Gossett Intro to Sociology Dr. Winfred Avago June 5, 2021

Creating Connections No one chooses to say the words, “I am an addict”. For my final project, I have chosen drug and alcohol abuse. I hope throughout my project that I can shed some light on what the makings of an addict are, what the life of an addict looks like, and what struggles an addict and everyone around them go through. For short, I will refer to this as substance abuse.

Substance abuse doesn’t start out as a full-blown problem in most people. It generally starts out with a drink here and there. Maybe a joint with your buddies in high school. But over time, these small instances aren’t releasing the same feeling they once did. That is when the brain moves from enjoyment to addiction. Over time, the body gets used to these chemicals being introduced repeatedly. When they aren’t present, the body craves more and more. Substance abuse tells your mind that your body needs something to make it feel “normal” again. Without this, the body will go into withdrawal symptoms. Until you have fulfilled that craving, the withdrawal symptoms will only worsen until the substance has completely been flushed out of the body. But this isn’t the end of it. The mind then must repair itself after a long time of abuse.

One of the main cultural prejudice to substance abuse is that it only impact people of poverty. People that don’t have a good education. Most think that it can only affect a person that doesn’t have goals or dreams. These are nothing but untrue. Substance abuse shows no discrimination. About 38% of adults battled some form of illicit drug abuse in 2017. The same year, 1 in every 8n adults struggled with both drug and alcohol abuse disorder simultaneously. In 2017, an astonishing 8.5 million Americans suffered from both mental disorder and substance abuse disorder or referred to as co-occurring disorders. It does not matter what family you come from, or what background you have. It doesn’t matter if you are educated from the finest of school, or whether you were a high school drop-out. When something that makes a person feel

Creating Connections good is introduced, a chemical called dopamine is released. And when that chemical isn’t present at the level the body or mind would like it to be, a person with substance abuse problems will do just about anything to fulfill that dopamine again. Another bias is that people of color struggle with substance abuse more than others. This is very wrong. Below is a demographic breakdown from July 2019:

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White: 60.1%

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Hispanic or Latino: 18.5%

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Black or African American: 13.1%

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Asian American: 5.9%

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American Indian or Alaskan Native (AIAN): 1.3%

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Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander (NHOPI): 0.3% There are many social roles associated with substance abuse. As we grow into adults, our

life changes tremendously. We learn new things that make us happy, we find new friendships that spark our interest. But something that doesn’t change is our family roles. Where we come from plays a large part in how we evolve. A person with substance abuse problems may find it difficult to deal with past trauma associated with their parents for example. A person that has a parent that has struggles with drug or alcohol abuse is likely to follow in that same path. Is it not always that a person ends up with a substance abuse problem because of a family tie, but is plays a large part. In a study from 2009 to 2017, an annual average of 8.47 million children aged 17 or younger lived in a home with at least 1 parent that struggled with substance abuse. Children of addicts are 8 times more likely to struggle with some form of addiction at some point in their lives. On top of having a parent who suffers from

Creating Connections addiction being a straight correlation to you yourself struggling with it, you then add a strained relationship between the two, and it is a potential recipe for disaster. A person that struggles mentally is more likely to have problems with substance abuse. A person that has undealt with trauma also is more likely to struggle with it. The parent/child role having a negative affect on a person’s life does in fact show markers for future substance abuse problems.

Social inequality in drug and alcohol abuse may be presented in a person’s religious background. A person that has been a lifelong religious participant may not be thought to have any struggles with drug or alcohol abuse. This is a misconception in so many ways. The strain of being told you must uphold a greater or higher view on things that are thought of as “bad” can make a person that does end up struggling with these problems hide them for longer or be so ashamed to reach out for help, that they never get the chance to recover. A person that comes from a high class neighborhood versus the kid that didn’t have electricity or running water at their home means no difference in the probability of drug and alcohol disorders either. It does not matter what material items you were raised having, what vehicle you drove, or what geographical area you came from. Anyone, and I do mean anyone can develop an addiction to drugs and/or alcohol. Another social inequality is a person’s current financial status. Just because a person lives in a trailer, this does not mean they do meth. And just because a person lives in a 2.4 million mansion does not mean they don’t have a heroin problem. Yet again, addiction does not discriminate, and it does not favor any one person more than the next.

Creating Connections A large misconception concerning social issues and addiction is a person’s work ethic or employment status. A person that struggles with addiction can have a very successful career. They can go to work every day and never miss a beat. They are what you call a functioning addict. Then there is the person that loses every job they get because they struggle with addiction. There are these problems in every field of work out there. And you may not ever know who the person is. Just because a person struggles with these things, doesn’t mean they can’t find or keep a job. Statistically speaking, yes, people with addiction issues do have a harder time keeping a job. But it is not unheard of, or as rare as some may think. People with addiction issues tend to be a part of crime more than people that don’t. The need to feed their addiction, therefore they tend to steal or commit other crimes to feed their habit. If someone is suddenly denied access to a narcotic medication they have been taking, they may start stealing to purchase the drug off the streets. People with addiction problems don’t usually stop and think of the consequences because they need for that substance is so great, that they will do just about anything in that moment to get it. This leads to jail time, fines, and future issues with criminal records. Mental health is something that is a large part of substance abuse problems. It is a large social issue in substance abuse disorder. People that struggle with mental health are more likely to medicated themselves with illegal substances because they don’t have access to proper healthcare. They want to numb the way they feel, and drugs and alcohol are readily available when mental health medications are not. People that struggle with mental health disorders often experiment with drugs and alcohol because it changes the way their brain works. It may give them a release they have never been able to get prior.

Creating Connections Putting a person in jail that has a mental disorder along with substance abuse disorder does nothing to help the real issue. A person that steals to fund their drug habit will not stop just because you lock then up for a few days or weeks. They will most likely get out and go right back to their usual behaviors. This is a vicious cycle that most addicts end up in due to their substance abuse problems. The answer has been to punish them instead of help them. Most sober, clear minded, mentally stable people do not commit crimes. In order to help the problem with addicts alone, or that also struggle with mental disorders, we must figure out how to help them understand why they are doing the things they are in the first place. Legalizing marijuana is a start in my opinion. It has taken the stigma off of it and spread knowledge on the positive properties that it holds. But that was just a small answer to a much bigger problem. People are still doing illegal substances. They won’t stop just because they are thrown in jail. Maybe enough times and they’ll quit while incarcerated. But maybe if we offer them better healthcare for their problems, they can get down to the real problem as to why they’re choosing to put those substances into their bodies. And perhaps we stop stigmatizing them into thinking they don’t deserve the chance to be anything different than a junkie, they’ll start believing in themselves more. If we could stop making them feel like they don’t deserve anything better than to be treated like a criminal that is underserving of another chance, then it is possible that we could really help start alleviating a pandemic that is literally killing millions of people.

Creating Connections

References:

https://americanaddictioncenters.org/rehab-guide/addiction-statistics#:~:text=About%2038%25%20of %20adults%20in,an%20illicit%20drug%20use%20disorder.&text=That%20same%20year%2C %201%20out,and%20drug%20use%20disorders%20simultaneously.&text=In%202017%2C %208.5%20million%20American,%2C%20or%20co%2Doccurring%20disorders.

https://sunrisehouse.com/addiction-demographics/different-races/

https://www.orlandorecovery.com/blog/does-addiction-run-in-families-addiction-in-familiesstatistics/#gref

https://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/social_inequality.htm...