Saturday, 30 July 2016

Causes of drugs and alcohol abuse in the family unit

The family unit should be the most important thing to a person. It should be the backbone or rather the support system for each one of you. At the end of the day, when everyone is gone their way for whatever reasons, you definitely need someone or rather people to be by your side. This can be nothing more than your family.

The worst thing that can ever happen to you is having a dysfunctional family unit. Imagine a family with a present but absent father figure, or mother or even you as the child. By this I mean being physically there but not there for each other in times of need.

When drugs and alcohol abuse become a norm in the family, it begins to break apart. There are various causes of drugs and alcohol abuse in the family, some of which are:

Frustration  

This could be by a school going child. When your results in school are not as you had expected yet you think you work hard enough, you may want to engage in substance abuse with the aim of relaxing, or as you call it nowadays ‘getting high’.Frustration can also come about to you as a parent. That moment when you feel you are an inadequate mother or the father yet you should be the bread winner. You then turn to the bottle to seek solace and before you know it you cannot do without it. 


·         Peer pressure

This also brings about the usage of drugs and alcohol in the family. You know, peer pressure does not only occur to school going students but also to you as a parent.It could be that your workmates have invited you to join them during one of their drinking sprees, so this becomes your starting point. You then begin to buy yourself 1 bottle, 2 bottles. You begin to hide while engaging and before you know it, it’s too late. You are addicted!


·         Poor family relationships

In the family unit, there needs to be accountability between the parents and the children. You as a parent may be unaware of the fact that your child is engaging in substance abuse and you realize when it’s too late.In case you find yourself in such a situation as the parent, you have no reason to worry. With initiatives like http://www.arise-network.com, you will get the absolute help that you need.

·         Depression

There are moments that you just want to be alone; maybe for various reasons like stress, worry among many others. You start thinking of suicide and result in doing drugs with the hope that you will forget of the here and now problems.

·         Neglect

This is especially for the young abusers in the family. It could be that your parents do not give you the attention you deserve as their child, so you resort to substance abuse, probably so that they can pay attention to you.