The social aspects of a father's drug abuse on the family

Abstract

This study tackles the impact fathers who misuse drugs have, from a social perspective, on the family, while fully exposing the long-lasting harm suffered by other family members, and how the family and individual functioning are severely damaged. In such cases the family members endure social, psychological and physical damages and this study concentrates on the social harm entailed by such criminal behaviour. The social factors contributing to the father’s drug abuse are appraised particularly from the viewpoint of the Attachment Theory and the Family Systems Theory. The inquiry proceeds to the problem’s effect across time, neglect, stigmatization and exclusion, physical abuse and its social repercussions, the damaged social, emotional and educational functioning of the family, and how the likely link between drug abusing fathers and crime affects the social life of the other family members. The qualitative research methodology describes why professional people close to such families like Oasi Foundation, Sedqa and Caritas social workers, a psychologist, a probation officer and a member of the clergy where chosen. In fact, social reality and its knowledge, according to interpretivism and constructionism, are a social construct built by those who experience it. Semi-structured one-to-one interviews with open ended questions, while respecting ethical requisites, yielded rich in-depth data. Drug abuse by fathers is likely caused by already existing relational-marital, financial and psychological problems. After this theoretical groundwork, a feasible strategy is proposed. To avoid the long list of harmful social impacts of this problem on the family mentioned above, early identification of the problem and timely seeking of help and rehabilitation are highlighted. The education system should be trained to identify such problems as early as possible, and society must not discriminate against family members with a father figure suffering from substance abuse. Finally, rehabilitation under strict control and away from the prison setting is needed.