By : Prof. Geer Mohammad Ishaq
Drug abuse, that is more appropriately termed as ‘Substance-Use-Disorder’ owing its derivation to the rising trend of abuse of multiple substances and volatile solvents apart from opioids and prescription drugs, is more of a bio-psycho-social disease or disorder than a self-inflicted affliction, with definite socio-politico-economic and medico-legal dimensions.
Etiological or causative factors of this disease, that has of late assumed shape of a dreadful monster ready to swallow and engulf our budding youth and developing nation, too are a lot more complex and diverse than just emotional distress or pleasure-seeking yearning of abusers and so are its confounding and risk elevating factors.
Therefore, this scourge needs to be viewed through all relevant prisms and perspectives and all its associated dimensions need to be studied well leading to a multi-pronged, multi-faceted and multi-dimensional strategy to tackle the menace effectively and decisively. Any half-hearted, superficial or unidimensional approach will simply be a waste of time, resources and energy yielding very little or no benefits in terms of curbing this menace.
Since the problem is deep-rooted, its solution too demands an in-depth exploration and excavation for its conclusive extermination from the depths of our society. This article series seeks to discuss some of the multiple dimensions governing this malaise and multipronged strategies needed to effectively control the same.
While first and second parts of this series will discuss psycho-social and religious dimensions; third part will dwell upon medico-legal and biological dimensions; fourth part will shed light upon geo-political and economic dimensions and finally fifth and last part of this series will deliberate upon administrative and regulatory dimensions of this menace. Focus will be on the problem as well as its solution.
Social Dimensions
The theme chosen by United Nations for this year’s International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking on June 26th was, “People first: Stop stigmatization and discrimination” that emphasized upon the need to treat victims of drug abuse with empathy while showing no sympathy for those indulging in illicit peddling and trafficking of drugs.
It calls for an end to isolation, discrimination and dehumanization of drug abuse victims and giving them the much-needed opportunities for treatment, rehabilitation, livelihood generation and reintegration back into their respective communities since they too have their own human rights.
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) duly recognizes the importance of taking a people-centric approach with a focus on human rights, compassion, and evidence-based practices.
While sharing and caring, mutual respect, longing and love, coherence and compassion have conventionally been the hallmarks of human relations, social relationships nowadays appear to be undergoing a rapid transition from a close-knit, coherent and intertwined social fabric to an isolated, fragmented and self-centric style of living.
Mutual relations are perpetually getting overwhelmed by the rampant use of social media and electronic gadgets leaving little scope for frequent physical interactions, sharing, caring and complementary exchanges. Of late it appears that the intensity, intimacy and depth of bonding among relations is gradually dwindling due to a whole lot of inherent and overarching factors.
All this is pushing our younger generation towards the edges and forcing them to explore new ways of social engagement, entertainment and living. Consequently, they are finding temporary and deceptive solace in drugs and substances of abuse and thereby ruining their entire life and future. They are falling prey to the peddlers and getting enslaved by the short-lived euphoria of drugs.
Need of the hour is to help drug abuse victims break the shackles of slavery and set themselves free from this dangerous entrapment. We need to give victims of drug abuse their freedom to think, plan and decide for themselves within the supportive framework of a loving and caring family and community. Being judgmental about them sows the seeds of discord and hostility among them.
One should neither look down upon them nor expect them to change themselves overnight. Accepting people as they are with all their flaws, shortcomings, limitations as well as powers and strengths is the key to a sustainable relationship.
As a result of our fraying social fabric our youth are getting more and more isolated and feeling lonely with very limited opportunities of recreation and relaxation.
We need to revert back to social engineering through community-based, peer-led interventions and change our age-old social practices, dogmas and stereotypes. We need to treat drug abuse as a disease and accordingly help the victims overcome its sphere of influence through appropriate social, medical, educational, administrative and regulatory interventions.
Transition from joint to nuclear families and social seclusion practices have led to shattered community linkages. Supportive families are essential for raising socially, mentally and physically healthy and well-adjusted children and preventing later adolescent problems.
Factors such as lack of security, trust and warmth in parent-child relationships, lack of structure in family life, inappropriate disciplining practices and insufficient limit-setting can render children at greater risk of isolation, problematic behaviours and subsequent substance abuse and mental health disorders.
Therefore, family skills training programmes have been found to be effective in preventing many of these risky behaviours, including substance abuse. There is need to adopt innovative approaches to keep the drug threat at bay.
Parents and other family members of the victims in particular have a very significant role to play in identifying potential abusers, developing a supportive and caring environment within the family, counseling and educating the abusers about the ill-effects of drug abuse, helping the abusers to return back to the normal life and get rid of the substances of abuse, while at the same time rehabilitating them and boosting their morale and confidence to start afresh as a normal human being capable of standing on their own feet and living an independent life.
Other than parents, young adults spend most of their time with their teachers thus making them one of the important stakeholders in curbing the menace of drug abuse.
Teachers can be of great help in detecting, identifying, counselling, hand-holding, supporting, encouraging, rehabilitating, remedying, mainstreaming and managing the young drug abusers attending their classes.
Regular awareness and counselling programmes through outdoor camps, open air theatres, dramas, painting competitions, video displays, street plays etc need to be conducted by every school and college across the state against drug abuse in order to acquaint the students with the dangers and consequences of such addiction.
Awareness about ill effects of drug abuse must be incorporated into the curriculum at all levels of education. Teachers too need to be acquainted well with the signs and symptoms of potential substance use disorder. Modern day teacher has to be a friend, a philosopher, a guide, a counsellor, a mentor and sometimes a ‘caregiver’ too.
‘Care’ translates into interventions that are in the best educational, emotional and psychological interests of the students. As suggested by Deiro (1996), “Students value adults who value them”.
Thus, students who are living in seemingly intolerable situations but have a pro-social adult outside their home environs who cares about them will adjust their behaviour to carefully safeguard that relationship.
At the community level, constitution of block and district level monitoring and vigilance committees with active participation of police, traffic police, medical health officers, school and college teachers, principals, religious preachers, housing societies, Mohalla committees, drug control and excise officials can go a long way in not only creating awareness and preventing abuse but also in identifying magnitude of the problem in each locality and motivating the abusers towards return, reintegration and rehabilitation. Social engineering is of crucial importance in preventing drug addiction.
Perpetual sermons through religious preachers during weekly religious congregations, mass prayers and gatherings can have a durable impact in discouraging drug abuse.
In Islam use of alcohol as well as all kinds of intoxicants has been clearly prohibited in Holy Quran, Surah Al-Ma’idah [5:90-102], wherein substance abuse has been declared an act of Satan that takes a person away from success, freedom and welfare in life.
Therefore, prohibition of drug abuse by all religions needs to be propagated and disseminated constantly to curb the menace. Religious beliefs have a strong influence upon individuals and therefore religious sermons by the respective heads can be highly effective in controlling the problem.
Mohalla committees need to identify drug abusers in their own localities, counsel them and their parents, offer them all kinds of monetary, psychological and logistic support in rescuing the victims from the clutches of drug abuse and subsequently treating, reintegrating and rehabilitating them back into the mainstream. Constant monitoring, vigil and intervention at the locality level can prove to be highly effective in overcoming this scourge.
Socio-economic, physical, emotional and mental stress produced by the ever-increasing needs, demands and challenges of the contemporary times push the populations in general and youth in particular towards uncertainty, insecurity, instability and fallibility. As a result, some of the budding youth studying in schools and colleges often tend to make mistakes and wrong decisions in absence of proper guidance and supervision. Under peer group pressure or due to lack of awareness they sometimes try to seek refuge in drugs and other substances of abuse and end up becoming addicts. Marking their entry into the dark world of substance abuse they begin with “experimentation” either under peer pressure or out of curiosity and eagerness to experience the temporary ‘excitement’. Then they switch over to “regular use” to continue with the artificial euphoria that lands them into “risky use or abuse” and finally they become physically and psychologically subservient to drug abuse and turn into full time “addicts or dependents”. Therefore, protecting adolescents from adversity at the right stage, promoting socio-emotional learning and psychological well-being, and ensuring access to mental health care are critical for their health and well-being during adolescence and adulthood. This underlines the need to have psychological counsellors at all educational institutions including schools, colleges and universities who can patiently listen to the youngsters, try to understand their mental health needs, offer them coping strategies for overcoming stress and other deviations from normal behaviour through professional psychological counselling.
High school level marks the beginning of adolescence, a tumultuous and transformative phase in the lives of children. This is the time when they begin to have their own likes, dislikes, outlooks and perceptions about issues, people, ideologies and surroundings, develop their own perspectives and desire to take their own decisions. At this stage it becomes important to channelise their curiosity, enthusiasm and energy towards the right direction through proper guidance and mentoring, in absence of which they may seek refuge in drugs, substances of abuse, bad company, illegal activities and sometimes even fall prey to anti-social elements without realizing its ill effects on their career and future life. Furthermore, the parental pressure to perform well in the examinations, score a high percentage of marks, steer through cut-throat competitions and secure admissions in a reputed college or university are the prime concerns that they usually face. To make things worse, traditions of unfair comparisons and unhealthy competitions in the society besides undue expectations of parents put additional burdens on their feeble shoulders. Parents often fail to appreciate the unique personalities and hidden talents of their children and often force them to be a part of the rat race for medical and engineering admissions. All this often leads to immense pressure, frustration, anxiety and depression among the children. Under such circumstances a caring and empathetic psychological counsellor back at school can serve as a pro-social adult for such students who feel frustrated, helpless and rebellious and can adjust their behaviours, help them identify troubling emotions and thoughts besides teaching them develop coping mechanisms and counter strategies for the same using psychotherapy or talk therapy. Through psychotherapy they can help such students break the vicious cycle of repetitive negative beliefs and thoughts that are followed by perpetual negative feelings and emotions (obsession) and are then ensued by negative behaviour and actions (compulsion). They can help and train them when and how to divert their attention from negative to positive thoughts and feelings. Psychological counsellors can also counsel the parents of such children, rationalize, balance and align their behaviour and expectations in the right direction, thus helping the students get relieved from their unbearable burdens of unrealistic expectations.
At college level, students feel quite exuberant with enthusiasm and energy. This is an enthralling and exhilarating phase that marks a new turn in the life of a student towards his future. Experience of the new place, new people, new classmates, new environment and a new life can sometimes be difficult for a few to handle particularly those with a shy and introvert kind of personality. New ambience could throw new challenges of social behaviour, networking, intermingling and forming new friendships and relations besides issues related to self-esteem for some students that in turn could cause stress, social anxiety, depression, abnormal behaviour and unusual thoughts. Therefore, a psychological counsellor could be a very helpful source of support for such students where they can get counselling regarding their career, courses, relationships, adapting to the new atmosphere and in tackling personal emotional and mental health issues. Such kind of psychological counselling could boost their morale and improve their performance in their chosen stream and help them overcome their inhibitions, constraints and limitations in their participation in extra-curricular activities like sports, music, fine arts, winter and summer camps, hiking, mountaineering, nature exploration etc. They can be counselled about social anxiety issues, substance abuse and day-to-day stress. Appropriate professional help could help them receive suitable medical and non-medical interventions wherever needed and thereby excel in their career without falling prey to anti-social and immoral activities. This way they will be well-equipped to handle such challenges and be mentally strong to face them upfront.
Adolescents who are suffering from any kind of personality or psychiatric disorders are particularly vulnerable to social exclusion, discrimination, stigma that in turn affects their readiness to seek help and exposes them further towards risk-taking behaviour, physical and mental illnesses. Suicide is the fourth leading cause of death worldwide among 15- to 19-year-old children. Therefore, the consequences of failing to address adolescent mental health conditions can extend to adulthood, impairing both physical and mental health and limiting their opportunities to lead fulfilling lives as adults. Physical, emotional and social changes, including exposure to poverty, abuse, or violence, can make adolescents vulnerable to mental health problems. Psychological counsellors at primary school level can identify and help children suffering from disorders like schizophrenia, anxiety and panic disorders, phobias, mood disorders like bipolar disorder, eating disorder, autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, personality disorders or learning disabilities. Since parents are not medically trained to notice the symptoms and diagnose these disorders, barring a few of them who are doctors by profession, they often fail to identify these disorders and get timely medical intervention for the same, often leading to increasing severity and progressive complications with advancing age. Availability of a psychological counsellor at school can ensure constant observation of kids through their class teachers leading to timely diagnosis and early treatment of psychological and personality disorders besides better outcomes of education. Therefore, all educational institutions must engage psychological counsellors to support students in managing their mental health and staying away from drugs and other substances of abuse.
Quite often it has been observed that inability or failure to make a right career choice at an appropriate stage in life and landing into a career that is contrary to one’s liking leads to utter frustration among the budding youth and generates negatives thoughts, emotions and behaviours making them vulnerable to substance abuse and mental disorders. Therefore, making suitable professional career counselling facilities available at schools and colleges for the timely guidance of students can be of immense help in saving them from the quagmire of frustration, chaos and confusion in life. As such, apart from a psychological counsellor, all our educational institutions need to establish career counselling cells wherein services of professionally qualified and well-trained career counsellors can be made available for fulfilling the counselling needs of our students through psychometric testing and personality profiling. Establishment of career-cum-psychological counselling cells in all educational institutions could mark a good beginning towards immunising our society from the dreadful disease of drug abuse.
