The Social Problem of Drug Abuse
Introduction
Drug abuse started in my family with my brother Camilo. As a poor, migrant family, we had to move around a lot as my father was constantly looking for work. Eventually he obtained a steady job and our family settled in the suburbs. Camilo found it difficult to adjust to all the changes that the family endured, however; making new friends only to have to pick up and move and start all over again took a toll on him. In order to find something stable in his own life he started hanging around a local gang, and then is when he took up his drug habit. The drugs really consumed him and he became totally dependent on them. They changed his character: he began lying and skipping school; before long he dropped out altogether—and then he even started stealing from our parents. It was as though he had been replaced by one of those alien body snatchers from the movies. On the outside he was the same, but inside there was some different character looking out from behind the eyes. All the same, my family has never condemned Camilo or ostracized him. He is still my brother and my parents still view him as their son. In fact, we all still get along great, like family. The only pain we experience is that we have to see him suffer: to this day, he is still a drug addict and still resorts to theft to pay for his supply. He has tried so many times to quit but never has been achieved his goal. He has been in an out of local and state prisons, and in and out of rehab programs. He is open about wanting to quit but also about how his chemical dependency is so strong now. What’s worse is that this problem is not confined to my own family but rather is a huge social problem—an epidemic, in fact, as DuPont (2018) has pointed out.
The Epidemic of Drug Abuse in Society
More than 25 million Americans struggled with drug addiction according to a 2014 survey by the Substance Abuse...
References
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