Ross A. Laird

More news this weekend about increasing trends in drug and alcohol use: in Scotland, in Japan, and among Australian kids.

Addiction evolves in societies, particularly among cultures experiencing stress. And it begins developmentally, in families and in the community. But research trends both in substance use are moving away from developmental questions. Researchers are less interested in childhood development than they once were. Genetic and biochemical factors now dominate the research landscape.

Developing a vaccine for cocaine addiction seems like a wonderful contribution, as does finding a gene for alcoholism, or a medicine for inhibiting the effects of methamphetamine. I’m not opposed to such research. It will help some addicted people. But it reflects a social trend toward quick-fix approaches and a hesitancy to deal with the broader, root causes of addiction, which have to do with the overall functioning of family and society.

Addiction typically begins at home, in the early life of a child, in the experiences and imprints of the crucial developmental years. To overlook this fundamental reality, which is plain to the addicted and to those who work with them, is to invent a fable: that addiction is a simple choice, or a character flaw. Such a perspective is a collusion in the mythology of separation. As a society, we have chosen to cast off the addicted, to cut them adrift. We have not rowed them beyond the shore of their suffering. Instead, we have made of them castaways, that they may lie on cold streets.

The Sirens of addiction sing to the addicted, “crying beauty” as the poet Homer once said. And the user, the junkie, the stoner — they go. Why would they not? What else have we offered them? What appeal have me made that would reclaim them from that dream?