Category: Addiction

The image of a homeless alcohol addict, sleeping under a pile of newspapers, on a park bench at night is for many fact of life. Secure places for homeless alcohol addicts to sleep at night are limited. The reality is that some who are addicted to alcohol do not want the confines of safe shelter. They make a choice to sleep out in the street. There are people homeless due to alcohol addiction in every city.

Whereas most drug addicts don’t see middle age, alcohol addicts who are homeless can be in late middle to early old age. Homeless alcoholics include both men and women who have chosen the bottle as a way of life. Some advanced alcoholics drink methylated spirits. Young adults and teenagers, including children as young as 10, who have become homeless often use alcohol and may have alcohol dependence because alcohol is cheap, can be legally obtained and it is a comfort to them.

There are many reasons why adult alcohol addicts become homeless. Most have previously been able to accommodate and support themselves, some have even been quite prosperous, owning their own homes and businesses, or employed in executive jobs.

Alcoholism is not a disease, it is simply caused by stress. There is said to be a relationship between alcohol addiction and a diagnosis of mental illness, and certainly if not pre existent, prolonged alcohol abuse will cause both physical and mental ill health.

The problem of homeless alcoholics highlights the fact that our world is structured such that no one has an entitlement to safe shelter and to a roof over their head. In our world, to have safe shelter you have to go out and earn it. Unless you win lottery, or seek charity, or find yourself rounded up into the custody of the system, there is simply no place in this world where, without money, you can lawfully be. This makes for temporary hang outs and an itinerant life style for the people of the streets.

Part of the problem for the homeless addicted is that they lack a sense of purpose and self-identity. Their only continuing connection with mainstream society might be a social security linked bank account. With no job and no social security, then for all intents and purposes, the homeless addict is simply invisible to the system. The homeless alcoholic depends on his wits and upon charity.

Due to alcohol abuse being a passive defense to the experience of emotional pain, alcoholics are not, like addicts high on speed, regarded as a public threat, more of a public nuisance. Alcoholics function in the depressive range – with little hope or expectation for the future and low regard for self. For some, a need to accept charity perhaps for the first time can be an added blow to self esteem.

Government housing assists many in poverty but it goes with the assumption that people will still pay a rental which is within their means. Providing homes for the homeless would require a bottomless purse. Not only do they lack both money and possessions, they are destitute in spirit.

The solution to homeless addiction lies in raising self esteem and optimism for the future. Holistic counseling methods can bring relief from a depressive outlook and provide help with issues of self esteem. Often the ladder back into society can look too hard to climb. Holistic therapy, including 100% drug free detox methods for alcohol addiction can provide a helping hand.

Alcohol drug abuse treatment deals with a variety of personality disorders in the compulsive range. When a person engages in compulsive behavior it is reasonably certain that the issues behind it are very deeply entrenched, such that no alternatives give the same degree of relief and satisfaction.

The medical fraternity considers alcohol and drug abuse to be a disease, or mental illness and so alcohol drug abuse treatment consists primarily of medications, sometimes but not always with associated therapy. What therapy there is, is often limited, a person after medical alcohol drug abuse treatment will often find himself out there on his own.

Sometimes government funded alcohol drug abuse treatment will involve attendance at funded self-help groups. Many complain after years, that although their condition is stabilized, they don’t feel they have really moved on. There is no alcohol drug abuse treatment that professes to have found a cure. The medical profession claims the reasons to be genetic and say that they are still looking for the genes, or that causes are unknown and are happy to leave it there. It is against the law for any non-medical health practitioner to claim to have found a cure for any type of health problem or addiction.

Alcohol drug abuse treatment has been around for years, the best for alcohol is the 12 step plan, teaching abstinence and methods to cope with the continued craving. Drug abuse is treated mainly with long term, less damaging chemical alternatives, in all cases people are called recovering or in recovery – never in medical terms do you hear of anyone who has recovered from the “disease” of addiction as they call it.

There are many who consider that alcohol drug abuse treatment should be directed towards people’s emotional side, and that possible cures, and healing can occur with holistic methods. Many agree that such alcohol drug abuse treatment should be somehow “dynamic”, re-creating and creating positive change. Not many have more than a theory as to how this can be achieved.

The idea that merely talking about your feelings, to someone who understands what you are talking about, and who can provide guidance, support and interpretation as a means of alcohol drug abuse treatment is too simple it seems to deserve any funding and lacks a clear evidence base. Millions of dollars is poured into the medical system, the evidence being overwhelming that their alcohol drug abuse treatment at best supports the afflicted, it’s nowhere near to a cure. Alcohol drug abuse still continues to rise.

What is clearly needed is a level playing field, with all types of alternative practices funded, on a trial basis, giving them a chance to prove their worth. Surely the current failure of standard alcohol drug abuse treatment to fully alleviate suffering should encourage a search for new and better methods, if only on humanitarian grounds. Currently medicine is very much re-inventing the wheel as it investigates, as possible cures, plants and herbal medicine, the holistic methods of old. It may well be found at the end of the day, that it is not new methodology we seek for alcohol drug abuse treatment but a return to community and personal relationship that we seem to have lost along the way.

When there is parental drug abuse in the home, the children will have problems. Parents who do not provide good role models, do not fulfill their parental role. Parents are looked up to by their children – what young children observe they come to see as being the way of life.

Parental drug abuse can have an impact on children before they are born – parental drug use can affect child development from conception, particularly in the first three months of the pregnancy when the fetus is most actively developing.

Fetal alcohol syndrome can deform and retard an infant, drug abuse produces low birth weight babies – some infants when born suffer from drug withdrawal. Drug abuse can lead to lack of bonding between mother and baby. This can lead to attachment difficulties for the child in all future relationships.

Deprivation, depression, malnutrition and emotional distress occur when the attention of the mother is focused more upon drug abuse than on caring for her baby. Parental drug abuse can isolate the family from the community and give children the stigma of being from a “bad” family.

With parental drug abuse there is tension and often fighting between the parents. Between ducking for cover and trying to form meaningful attachment to its parents, a child can be emotionally torn apart. Scientific evidence suggests that when a child is under stress, survival needs are prioritized. Fully integrated cognitive and emotional development does not occur. Abuse from parents can be physical and emotional.

An example of fragmented development of the psyche occurs with schizophrenia. R D Laing provides many case studies in his books which would suggest that it is enforced relationship with dysfunctional, powerful others that is a prime cause of mental distress and disorder in those who have to live with them.

When children have to cope with the fallout from parental drug abuse, it takes away their childhood. Living in fear tends to make children streetwise and wary – but emotionally vulnerable. Children may take sides with and feel protective of a mother – while experiencing intense guilt and shame at their lack of power to deal with the situation.

If a mother is abusing drugs, children will feel most insecure. The foundations for trust and love are based on our early experience of “mother”.

When the adults in the home abuse drugs it reduces the available money for necessities of life. Drug abuse has a negative effect at both a financial and emotional level. Children need the help and support of parents to meet their developmental milestones.

When parents are not responsive to important issues that the child is facing, children may become over dependent on other children to fill their emotional need for attachment. They will find that it is easy to attach themselves to gangs and groups who also feel alienated from normal relationships in the community.

Parents who are immersed in drug culture have an uncertain, anxious lifestyle, sometimes actual violence, illness, criminal conviction impacts upon the children.

Parents intent on raising “good” children will tend to ostracize and keep away from families with drug abuse problems.

Children can feel anger, resentment, envy and shame as a result of their parents not being like other happy family people.

Children distressed by parental drug abuse are lucky if they can confide in a relative or a grown up friend, as this helps them to gain a wider and hopefully more positive experience. Unless parents accept responsibility to stop drug abuse – intervention is justified.