Poverty, Homelessness as It Relates To Alcohol, Drug Addiction
Question
References should be from peer review articles. Look on PUBMed or APA Psyclnfo. preferably. I'm sending the assignment guidelines and a sample paper. This will be paper 4 as it relates to Substance abuse within the elderly population


Solution
Poverty, Homelessness as
It Relates To Alcohol, Drug Addiction
According to
statistics, in 2018, there were more than 500,000 homeless people in America
and considering that the American population increases annually, the number
continues to rise. Tragically, poverty and homelessness go hand in hand with
drug abuse and alcoholism. The result of homelessness is the abuse of drugs,
and substance abuse sometimes contributes to people losing their wealth and
becoming homeless. According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, 38
percent of homeless persons are alcoholics, and 25 percent are addicted to
drugs or alcohol.
Often, getting
addicted to alcoholism and substance abuse result from the state of being
homeless. The tough times the difficult conditions that these people have to
endure living on the streets, such as finding it extremely hard to find food to
eat, struggling with ill health, and being separated from loved ones, create a
stressful state which subjects people to hopelessness and addiction (Lacey et
al., 2020). Homeless people may sometimes develop psychiatric conditions
largely triggered by the harsh lifestyle they lead, which is characterized by
starvation, remaining in the cold for long hours, lack of love, and the feeling
of being threatened by violence.
According to
findings by Kouimtsidis et al. (2021), around 33% of homeless people have
mental health problems. Mental health is often considered a major factor
leading to homelessness, which causes alcohol and drug abuse. In most cases,
homeless individuals who have various mental conditions end up being victims of
sexual assault. This further necessitates the comfort they seek when they abuse
harmful substances. Additionally, homeless people going through serious mental
and emotional conditions sometimes find it convenient to engage in
self-meditation through harmful substances, which is a major factor in
strengthening poverty, homelessness, and addiction (Lacey et al., 2020). While
in some cases, serious mental conditions are suppressed through alcohol and
substance use, such behaviors result in a destructive cycle of dependency.
According to Lacey
et al. (2020), homeless women face numerous gender-based traumas in most cases,
which largely contributes to higher alcohol and substance abuse addiction rates
in homeless women than men. Furthermore, whereas 33 percent of homeless
american suffer from mental illness, women's rates of mental illness are much
greater than men's (Panadero et al., 2017). Approximately 50% to 60% of
homeless women experience serious mental and emotional disturbances, which
often pre-dates their condition as homeless individuals (Kouimtsidis et al.,
2021). Such disturbances grow severe when homeless women combine with
alcoholism and substance abuse.
Many homeless
youths become homeless due to substance abuse, sexual traumas, poverty, and
some are victims of sex trafficking, especially young women. Such factors and
various co-occurring disorders contribute to two-thirds of homeless youths who have
abused hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine once in their lifetime in the
streets. Youths between the ages of 12 and 17 are more likely than adults to
become homeless, according to Kouimtsidis et al. (2021), and the majority of
them have been victims of abuse and extreme poverty. Statistics show that
approximately 71% of missing, runaway, and abducted for sex trafficking have
reported serious substance abuse disorders (Panadero et al., 2017). Genetic
substance abuse, parental abuse, early substance use, poverty, and co-occurring
disorders are some of the variables that lead to more young people becoming
homeless.
References
Kouimtsidis,
C., Pauly, B., Parkes, T., Stockwell, T., & Baldacchino, A. M. (2021).
COVID-19 social restrictions: An opportunity to re-visit the concept of harm
reduction in the treatment of alcohol dependence. A position paper. Frontiers
in psychiatry, 12, 175.
Lacey,
R. E., Howe, L. D., Kelly-Irving, M., Bartley, M., & Kelly, Y. (2020). The
clustering of adverse childhood experiences in the Avon Longitudinal Study of
Parents and Children: are gender and poverty important?. Journal of
interpersonal violence, 0886260520935096.
Panadero,
S., Vázquez, J. J., & MARTÍN, R. (2017). Alcohol, poverty and social
exclusion: Alcohol consumption among the homeless and those at risk of social
exclusion in Madrid. Adicciones, 29(1).



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