A simple view of addiction is that people become hooked on a powerful chemical and their entire life becomes focused on nothing but the drug. The chemical sinks into the brain of the addicted person, and their desire for the neurological high from the chemical drives them beyond everything else. If only we could stop the person from ever being exposed to the chemical, even once, we would prevent them from ever developing their drug addiction and chemical dependence.
This view, however, is incomplete. A lot of what I try to do with this blog is show that the world is more complex than we often realize. It is easy to sit at home, listen to a news story on TV, and call everyone an idiot while offering an obvious solution from the couch. In reality however, our first impressions of the world and its problems are woefully inadequate, and drug addiction is a good example.
I recognize that chemical hooks, neurotransmitters, and brain chemistry are major parts of addiction, whether to a chemical substance, to a behavior like gambling, or other forms of addiction, but research that Dave Chase’s book The Opioid Crisis Wake-Up Call presents is a good indication that there is more going on than just a drive to fill the brain with a chemical. Chase writes, “For every one percent rise in unemployment, there’s a four percent rise in addiction and a seven percent increase in emergency department visits.“
Our economy, it appears, is deeply connected with addiction. It is not hard to think of a causal model between economic performance and addiction. Having a meaningful job gives people a chance to feel valued, gives people a chance to contribute to society, and gives people an increase in their social status (in political science we might think of Social Construction Theory: working people are Advantaged or at least Dependents whereas the unemployed are simply Deviants).
When people lose their job, they feel a loss of social status, they may feel helpless if they cannot find another job of equal status, and they lose their feeling of importance. They become more vulnerable, and it appears are more likely to turn to substances to blunt the pain they feel, either physically, mentally, or emotionally. This sets people up for addiction.
In this model, addiction is not just a moral failure. It is a failure at more levels than just the individual and their ability to work and resist chemicals. Our society has isolated people and made it hard to maintain strong family connections. When jobs disappear and people don’t have close people and community connections and organizations to turn to for meaning, purpose, and participation, they will struggle, and in their empty void potentially turn to drug use. Economic data makes this clear, and the solution is not just to provide someone with a bleak call-center job, but to really develop community connections, meaningful work, and opportunities to improve social status while deepening relationships and opportunities to contribute to society. Drug use is not a simple issue, it is tied to larger economic and social forces, and we have to recognize that reality to solve our nation’s problems.
