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Gracie Shrout

Leonard

ENG 1201

20 March 2022

Literature Review.

There are many individuals who suffer from drug abuse through out the world,

but not only these individuals are effected, their families are to. My resource question that I’m

going to be reviewing is, How does drug abuse cause an individual to be more at risk for violent

behaviors. My reasoning for researching this question is to get a better understanding of why

individuals who use drugs often resort to violent behaviors.

Drug abuse is a serious problem arising in the United States, in 2017 19.7 million

American adults (aged 12 and older) battles a substance use disorder. (Hardey) Drug abuse

doesn’t only affected the user. Drug abuse can tear families apart and but a huge strain on

interpersonal relationships. More often than not drugs can cause a change in individuals

behavior, this change can drastic. Some peoples close family won’t even recognize the person

they love anymore. SO, what exactly causes this extreme shift in behavior?

When you think about who would be most closely affected by an individual who’s using

drugs what’s the first thing that come to mind? Well, for me it’s the individual who’s using

family and their significant other. An article written by Amber M Jarnecke, Ruschelle M Leone,

Charli Kirby, and Julianne C Flanagan goes deeper into explaining how drug use and couple

violence go hand in hand. The Medical University of South Carolina conducted a clinical trial

where 30 different sex substance misusing couples completed sel-report questionaires and

participated in a laboratory conflict resolution task. These results concluded that men who report
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more severe IPV (Intimate Partner Violence) displayed more negative behaviors when their drug

use problems are more severe. (Jarnecke) Women who reported more severe physical IPV

displayed more negative and fewer positive behaviors when their drug use problems were more

severe. (Leone)

Substance abuse has been associated with violent behaviors for many decades. (Johnson

and Belfer) This source provides a look on why violence and substance abuse go hand in hand

and provides two different ways of looking at it. Violence explained first is physical violence

between family and/or friends. This is because drugs mess with your brain function and causes

you act sometimes, as a totally different person. The second outlook on violence would be the

violence that stems from the trade of drugs. Unfortunately, often times the selling of drugs can

go wrong very quickly. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2019 there were

1,558,862 arrests for drug law violations in the United States.

This next source goes into explain how using drugs interfere with how your brain works.

Neurons are what are in charge of sending, receiving, and processing signals, and when drugs

enter your system this interferes with the neurons doing their job. The entended amygdala, the

part of the brain that plays a role in stressful feelings like anxiety, irritability, and unease.

(NIDA) When drugs are taken and then when the high dies off (Short-term withdrawl) this can

cause agitation. This leads to violence inflicted on to others, emotionally or physically, until the

individual gets the high their searching for again.

This last source I’m going to be analyzing is an article posted on the American Addiction

Centers website. “Substance use disorders, a medical condition defined by the uncontrollable use

of drugs and/ or alcohol despite the negative consequences, have been associated with a range of

adverse outcomes, including suicide, premature death, comorbid mental illness, and violence”
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(Martens) Essentially this source goes into a deeper explanation of what other factors can

excerlerate violence while using drugs. The factors include the following, age, mental health

problems, polysubstance abuse, gender, family history, adverse childhood experiences, genetic

predisposition, antisocial attitudes and beliefs, and location (Surroundings).

A common misconception surrounded around the world of drug addition is that if an

individual wanted to get clean badly enough they would. This is simply not true because once an

individual becomes addicted to there brain essentially rewires itself. Their brains no longer

works like it did before or like yours and mine does. They will do anything to crave the feeling

the drugs allowed them to feel, they feel empty without it. Your body will require more and more

of that substance to achieve the same feelings of pleasure you had in the beginning. (Magobet)
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Works Cited

NIDA. 2022, March 22. Drugs and the Brain. Retrieved from

https://nida.nih.gov/publications/drugs-brains-behavior-science-addiction/drugs-brain on

2022, March 23

Shibboleth Authentication Request,

https://eds-p-ebscohost-com.sinclair.ohionet.org/eds/detail/detail?vid=10&sid=2d9e6ced-

10da-49b5-845b-a27e209ffac6%40redis&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU

%3D#AN=154322669&db=24h.

Vertava Health. “The Connection between Addiction and Violence.” Vertava Health, 18 May

2018, https://vertavahealth.com/blog/addiction-violence.

Johnson, Elaine M. and Myron L. Belfer. "Substance Abuse and Violence: Cause and

Consequence." Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, vol. 6 no. 2, 1995,

p. 113-121. Project MUSE

Admin. “Top 10 Drug Abuse Misconceptions & How to Overcome Them.” Diamond House

Detox, 5 Jan. 2022, https://diamondhousedetox.com/drug-abuse-misconceptions/.

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