Homelessness amongst Drug Addicts
The correlation between homelessness and drug addiction is a controversial topic that many can not agree upon. Of course, if you are taking a look solely at the homeless population, you will see there is a high number of them who are addicted to drugs or alcohol. Further looking into the subject however, the addiction can not always explain the reason for the fact that the person has lost everything – and some of the homeless do not even try drugs or alcohol as a way to cope with their problems until they are already in a homeless situation. The truth of the matter is that the majority of those who are addicted to alcohol or drugs never hit a point where they are homeless. The addicts who are most at risk, which should be common sense, are those who are poor to begin with. Clearly if you do not have a lot of money, and you choose to spend what you do have to support your addiction, it is much easier to lose your home to your addiction and end up on the streets.
When you think about the homeless, who are they? Records show that the majority of them are made up of mostly men, ages 18 to 35 and women ages 16 to 30 who are single parents. Many of them are minorities and local to the area where they grew up – not exactly the transients that people think they are. Also surprisingly, the majority of them have been on the streets for less than a year. Today’s homeless people are a diverse mixture of emotionally dysfunctional and mentally ill, some who are even at risk in a medical way with diseases such as AIDS or HIV. Some of them are actually drug and alcohol addicts who are dependent on a plethora of different substances. Statistics show that the number one cause of homelessness is mental illness. With all of this information, you can clearly see that there are just as many reasons that people end up homeless as there are homeless people living on the streets.
Research among the homeless shows that about two-thirds of them struggle with alcoholism and about half of homeless adults are dealing with a drug addiction in some form or another. Additionally, about a third of homeless adults suffer from severe psychiatric disorders, many of whom are dually diagnosed – that is – struggling with addiction and mental disorders at the same time.
At the end of the day, what people label as homelessness can really be described as a total alienation from human relationships and the support systems that most people can maintain. If they are addicts in addiction to being homeless, more than likely their relationships with family and friends were already dysfunctional. Broken homes and dysfunctional families are some of the root causes of those who become homeless – and it does not always have to do with drug or alcohol addiction.
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