Child abuse may cause addiction
Oct 16, 2005
WE all called him mad Tony, because on face value, he did crazy things. Tony had been to six schools in six years, having been expelled from all. While at Kings College Budo, he put a knife to his house prefect’s throat and almost slit it.
By Oscar Bamuhigire
WE all called him mad Tony, because on face value, he did crazy things. Tony had been to six schools in six years, having been expelled from all. While at Kings College Budo, he put a knife to his house prefect’s throat and almost slit it.
In another school, he narrowly missed smashing the head prefect’s head with a rock while he was asleep! He had been in and out of police cells, on charges of theft and aggravated assault. He smoked weed (marijuana) every hour. He wore dreadlocks in an era when dreads were infamous.
His body had scars, from his habitual fights. I had watched him on many occasions cut people’s faces with blades, in the middle of fights. Tony was my best friend in my school days. We were both 18 years old. Most people hated him. I have never seen a guy as tough as Tony.
But, Tony had another side to him: A dark, bleak and sorrowful side. “I am going to kill myself,†he told me one morning when I had gone to visit him. He sat by the roadside, staring blankly into space. I begged him not to kill himself. I counselled him for several hours that day. This happened often. Tony’s home was extremely violent. His father often beat up his mother in the presence of the children.
The children fought against each other with machetes and kitchen knives. The father fought against his own kids. Both parents beat their children hard.
One day, I found Tony’s clothes on the kitchen floor at his mother’s feet. They were full of bloodstains. “I don’t know where he is,†she replied softly when I inquired about his whereabouts. “We left him here naked the whole night,†she added.
Later, I learnt that Tony had been beaten up by the whole family and left lying unconscious on the kitchen floor the whole night. This was a middle class family in Kisugu, Muyenga! Later, Tony’s body was found lying by the roadside at kabalagala in a pool of blood.
The community concluded that either Tony’s family had murdered him, or he had committed suicide, unable to bear such suffering anymore. Tony was addicted to drugs and this had a lot to do with the abuses he had experienced as a child.
In my nine years of counselling addicts, I am yet to meet an addict who was not a victim of child abuse or neglect. Chris (one of my clients), was a psychological orphan.
His parents were separated and alcoholics. Chris lived in their home, a large mansion, with the housekeepers and some alcoholic relatives. His mother only popped in for a few hours a week. He did not really know his father, who had another family. No one really cared about this 14-year-old alcoholic.
Every alcoholic’s life is an untold story about his family. “our earliest experiences unfailingly affect society as a whole,†writes Alice miler in her book, For Your own Good. “psychoses, drug addiction, and criminality are encoded expressions of these experiences,†she writes.
As victims of child abuse, addicts hate themselves because they were hated. Psychiatrists refer to this self hatred as “self-destructive behaviour.†All addiction is self-destruction.
“Every kind of addiction,†explains Miller in her book Drama Of The Gifted Child, “is a way of escaping from the memories of one’s own painful life history… and every addict can overcome their addiction if they are ready to confront their memories…â€
When children are abused, later in adulthood, they will avenge those experiences by either abusing themselves, or abusing others. This is what psychiatrists refer to as the “repetition compulsion.â€
In the case of addicts, he or she will choose to unconsciously turn against oneself. He or she will abuse oneself through addiction, committing suicide, or the way he or she was abused as a child. One of my most recent clients, an 18-year-old boy, stunned his father when he began to scream out, “what’s the point in quitting drugs? Why don’t I kill myself? Life has no meaning! Who cares about me? I don’t want to live!â€
We hate ourselves so much that we begin to kill our selves slowly (self destruction).
Oliver James, a foreign writer, wrote in his article in The Times (April 9, 2003): “Although hardly a week passes without some expert claiming that addiction is an inherited trait, the evidence from studies of twins and adopted children is far from clear.
While genes may be crucial in some cases, childhood experience is usually the key. The main contributory factor is parental care: even if there is such a thing as a predetermined genetic vulnerability, your childhood history determines whether you will succumb to it…â€
The writer is an addiction counsellor.
WE all called him mad Tony, because on face value, he did crazy things. Tony had been to six schools in six years, having been expelled from all. While at Kings College Budo, he put a knife to his house prefect’s throat and almost slit it.
In another school, he narrowly missed smashing the head prefect’s head with a rock while he was asleep! He had been in and out of police cells, on charges of theft and aggravated assault. He smoked weed (marijuana) every hour. He wore dreadlocks in an era when dreads were infamous.
His body had scars, from his habitual fights. I had watched him on many occasions cut people’s faces with blades, in the middle of fights. Tony was my best friend in my school days. We were both 18 years old. Most people hated him. I have never seen a guy as tough as Tony.
But, Tony had another side to him: A dark, bleak and sorrowful side. “I am going to kill myself,†he told me one morning when I had gone to visit him. He sat by the roadside, staring blankly into space. I begged him not to kill himself. I counselled him for several hours that day. This happened often. Tony’s home was extremely violent. His father often beat up his mother in the presence of the children.
The children fought against each other with machetes and kitchen knives. The father fought against his own kids. Both parents beat their children hard.
One day, I found Tony’s clothes on the kitchen floor at his mother’s feet. They were full of bloodstains. “I don’t know where he is,†she replied softly when I inquired about his whereabouts. “We left him here naked the whole night,†she added.
Later, I learnt that Tony had been beaten up by the whole family and left lying unconscious on the kitchen floor the whole night. This was a middle class family in Kisugu, Muyenga! Later, Tony’s body was found lying by the roadside at kabalagala in a pool of blood.
The community concluded that either Tony’s family had murdered him, or he had committed suicide, unable to bear such suffering anymore. Tony was addicted to drugs and this had a lot to do with the abuses he had experienced as a child.
In my nine years of counselling addicts, I am yet to meet an addict who was not a victim of child abuse or neglect. Chris (one of my clients), was a psychological orphan.
His parents were separated and alcoholics. Chris lived in their home, a large mansion, with the housekeepers and some alcoholic relatives. His mother only popped in for a few hours a week. He did not really know his father, who had another family. No one really cared about this 14-year-old alcoholic.
Every alcoholic’s life is an untold story about his family. “our earliest experiences unfailingly affect society as a whole,†writes Alice miler in her book, For Your own Good. “psychoses, drug addiction, and criminality are encoded expressions of these experiences,†she writes.
As victims of child abuse, addicts hate themselves because they were hated. Psychiatrists refer to this self hatred as “self-destructive behaviour.†All addiction is self-destruction.
“Every kind of addiction,†explains Miller in her book Drama Of The Gifted Child, “is a way of escaping from the memories of one’s own painful life history… and every addict can overcome their addiction if they are ready to confront their memories…â€
When children are abused, later in adulthood, they will avenge those experiences by either abusing themselves, or abusing others. This is what psychiatrists refer to as the “repetition compulsion.â€
In the case of addicts, he or she will choose to unconsciously turn against oneself. He or she will abuse oneself through addiction, committing suicide, or the way he or she was abused as a child. One of my most recent clients, an 18-year-old boy, stunned his father when he began to scream out, “what’s the point in quitting drugs? Why don’t I kill myself? Life has no meaning! Who cares about me? I don’t want to live!â€
We hate ourselves so much that we begin to kill our selves slowly (self destruction).
Oliver James, a foreign writer, wrote in his article in The Times (April 9, 2003): “Although hardly a week passes without some expert claiming that addiction is an inherited trait, the evidence from studies of twins and adopted children is far from clear.
While genes may be crucial in some cases, childhood experience is usually the key. The main contributory factor is parental care: even if there is such a thing as a predetermined genetic vulnerability, your childhood history determines whether you will succumb to it…â€
The writer is an addiction counsellor.