Addictions are a Product of Social Dislocation and Family Stress

Shavickie Williams
Anne Barker
ENGL 1101, Assignment 4
March 08, 2015
Addictions are a Product of Social Dislocation and Family Stress
Addiction is a common problem in society that can be perceived by keenly observing those people who have some kind of attachment to commodities available in the free market. These addictive commodities can be in the form of illegal drugs, legal drugs, food, or other products that give people some form of psychological pleasure. These addicts may be friends from school, colleagues from work, a relative or even a brother or sister. Truth is, everyone can be a victim of addiction. Many scientific researchers have identified addiction as a social phenomenon that should be dealt with. Alexander and Shaler show in their article that "people who are socially dislocated are the most probable to turn to alternative activities for coping up with society" (Alexander and Shaler, 230). This gives the idea that the root of addiction is cemented into humanities co-existence and relationship with each other. Other people might think that addiction is a matter of individual choice and decisions when in reality, as observed by Bruce Alexander, addiction is a social problem embedded in the core values of society. The key determinant into solving addiction is the realization that we can make other people avoid turning to commodities for psychological gains by integrating each member of the society into an environment of joy, love, care, and acceptance.
In the article "Addiction in free markets" the authors state that if addicts are supplied with the psychological, emotional, and physical needs by their families and loved ones, and then they would not need to turn to the consumption of their addictions (Alexander, Shaler 232).In a study of rats by Bruce Alexander, it is observed that rats who have become addicted were cured of their dependency to drugged water by being integrated into an environment where they were able to be socially and physically active. This finding can be related to humans who can be cured of their addictions if society would collectively help in rehabilitating the affected and choosing to believe in the victims’ highest potential as human beings.
Mainstream knowledge about addiction states that it is an illness of an individual. Doctors say there is a link between the repeated uses of an addictive substance and how the human brain experiences pleasure - its use has a nice reward, leading to further and more frequent use. In that case, addiction is likely to happen when we are deprived of social connections and relationships and turn to gaining psychological pleasure derived from things instead of interaction with other people. It is embedded in our human nature that we need to bond and depend with others. If something goes wrong in our social upbringing as children, it can lead to unhealthy habits and addiction just like what happened to Evelyn Lau. In the story of Evelyn Lau, it is apparent that the root of her addiction to food and eventually her bulimic disorder is the psychological counterpart brought about by family stress and loose bonds with her parents. She has traced that the physical damage that she has experienced as an accumulated set of negative impacts from he...