Alcohol and Drugs

DO THE POOR USE illegal drugs and abuse alcohol more frequently than the wealthy or middle class? Is substance abuse a cause of poverty or a result? A 2001 survey found that Americans living in poverty listed drug abuse as a principal cause, not a result.

Since the 1960s, much American political debate has centered on the causes of poverty. Political progressives traditionally argued that the causes of poverty include society's systematic injustices, technological change, and America's shift from a manufacturing to a service and information economy. Conservatives have rebutted that poverty preceded such problems and results from a long list of causes, including wrong personal choices, such as drug abuse, exacerbated by bad government policy.

A variety of studies support the concept that poverty and substance abuse go hand in hand. One survey found that the rate of monthly drug use among welfare recipients in northern California was almost four times that of the area's general population. Another found levels of drug use among welfare recipients twice that of the general public. Another found a high inci [Page 30]dence of substance abuse among the homeless, particularly those in urban settings living on the street.

For those trying to escape poverty, alcohol and drug abuse only provides temporary relief and often exacerbates the problem.

Are the poor more susceptible to substance abuse? Stressful conditions with which the poor cope often include unemployment, underemployment or off-and-on employment, low-status and low-skill jobs, unstable family and relationships, low involvement in the community, a sense of being isolated from society, low ambition, and feelings of helplessness. Such conditions can cause a person to seek relief by indulging in illegal drug use and/or alcohol abuse.

Feelings of destitution and hopelessness often cause the despairing to seek transcendence by abusing substances. Long-term strategies typically elude those who suffer, as they seek immediate escape or release. Substance abuse can seem therapeutic, at least for the moment.

But such behavior severely impairs an individual's ability to cope with the very factors causing hopelessness, compounding personal aimlessness and intensifying the sufferer's sense of destitution. Furthermore, indulging expends the poverty-stricken individual's meager economic resources, providing only a temporary, impermanent solution at best.

Hence many individuals are trapped in a cycle of poverty and substance abuse: a man drinks because he is depressed at not having a job or being able to provide for his children; because he is frequently intoxicated, he cannot find or keep a job; because he is spending his money on substance abuse, his financial inability to provide is intensified as well as his sense of guilt—and so, he drinks more heavily to escape the hopelessness.

Can this cycle be broken? The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) identifies what it calls protective factors within society that can reduce risk factors leading to substance abuse. These protections, also referred to as prevention assets, result in reduced potential for substance abuse or make substance abuse less likely. Among these are a family consensus that drug use is unacceptable; clear rules of conduct that are consistently enforced within the family; involvement of parents in the lives and activities of their children; parental monitoring of children's activities and scrutiny of their peers; strong and positive family bonds; strong bonds with local institutions, such as school and church; and recognition by parents for their children's successful school performance.

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