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Review of 2 Scholarly Articles
Chris Brim
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Abstract
This essay is a review of two scholarly articles titled “Substance Abuse among
Professionals: Limited Research on Substance-Abusing Social Workers” and “Impact of
Substance Abuse on Families”. I will attempt to provide a complete and thorough summary of
each article, pointing out the key points that I think both articles make. I will also provide a
correlation between the articles and the way that they can be applied to the Social Work practice.
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Substance abuse is a growing concern in today’s world. Many people struggle with
substance abuse problems, and many of them are hidden problems. I’ve recently read two articles
titled ““Substance Abuse among Professionals: Limited Research on Substance-Abusing Social
Workers” and “Impact of Substance Abuse on Families”. I believe these articles will help to shed
some light on the plight of substance abuse. In reading these articles I’ve gained insight that I
feel is directly related to Social Work Practice.
The first article I read was “Substance Abuse among Professionals: Limited
Research on Substance-Abusing Social Workers”. This article gave some important information
on substance abuse in the professional world, with a focus on the social work profession, while
also giving some information pertaining to doctors and nursing also. It covered everyone in the
“helping people” professions. This article started out by defining the code of ethics Social
Workers adhere too. According to this code of ethics, “Social workers are to set examples for the
populations they serve and maintain ethical standards.”(Warren Wells, 2011, p2). Since the
Social Worker is held to such high standard, they can’t possible succumb to addiction. According
to Warren and Wells (2011), “Due to the nature of their work, this raises the stakes even higher
for health professionals because they are responsible for the care and well-being of clients. This
also applies to other professions that work directly with people, such as social workers” (p.5).
The only issue is that there is a very finite amount of research actually done of the problem of
substance abuse in the Social Work profession. A study was conducted on substance abuse
among social workers and found that “8% of social workers drank almost daily and 4% drank
daily. Of the social workers studied, 5.7% were reported to be problem drinkers” (Warren Wells,
2011, p5). That doesn’t even include the use of illicit drugs such as marijuana (6%), narcotics
(2%) or sedatives (3%). This rate of abuse among social workers is way too high. There are
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policies in place that are supposed to help a social worker with their abuse problems, but one
theory is that we hold social workers to such a high status that a social worker won’t be
confronted about their problem until it affects their work directly. The NASW has formed a
nation resource and support group called Social Workers Helping Social Workers to help combat
this problem but a recent survey found that only 9 out of 53 English-speaking NASW chapters
had any active assistance programs for those social workers.
The 2nd article I reviewed talked about the impact of substance abuse on families. In order
to try and eliminate the possibility that a child will be an abuser in the future, there needs to be a
positive and healthy environment for the child to come home too. This home needs to be filled
with love and care and parents whom are willing to spend quality time with their children. An
interesting point is made by Mariadhas (2012) “In the name of freedom and growth there is
widespread misuse of money. Money is replaced by love and care and this trend is very high
among the affluent families.” (p.36).This enables the child to buy the drugs easily. The children
that come from addictive families suffer emotional problems along with their addiction. Both of
these problems must be addressed before the child can begin healing. The family may react to
the addict in many different ways including: denial, preoccupation, problem finding, bargaining,
blaming, controlling, disorganization, aggression, change in sexual relationship, negativism,
parental inconsistency, parental denial, miscarried expression of anger, self-medication or
unrealistic parental expectations. There are ways to remedy the situation, and most of these
would seem to be common sense to the normal person but from dysfunctional families, this isn’t
the norm. You should allot time for you children, believe in your children, get involved with
your children, learn to communicate, help to develop positive self-esteem for your child, be a
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role model and have principles in your own life. While addiction never fully is “cured”, these
steps can help to remedy the situation and make life easier for the family and the addict.
I believe both these articles are important to a social worker’s profession. I think having
an awareness of the abuse that goes on within your own profession helps you to be more aware
of the others around you and if you have that gut feeling, you’re more apt to move on it. If you’re
aware of the abuse, you can use strategies for intervention that you may use with your own
clients. As a social worker you have access to resources that other people may not, and some
people don’t even know about. As for substance abuse in the families, I think it’s important to
see the family as a whole unit and to be able to break down every individual in the family.
Understanding the influences that the user receives from each member is important in helping
them to cope with their environment and addiction. Use of this article can influence methods
used for intervention, depending on where the family is with their understanding of the addiction.
Some families may feel that all is lost but the strategies outlined, can help a family to see that
they are practical methods that can be used to help a lost child.
I think both these articles would be very helpful to the Social Worker who read them, I
think they’d even be helpful to any professional who reads them. Both of these articles helped to
shed more light on the areas of social work I’m interested in. One being on social work itself and
the other on substance abuse.
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Warren, L., Feit, M. D., & Wells, J. (2011). Substance Abuse among Professionals:
Limited Research on Substance-Abusing Social Workers. Journal Of Human Behavior In The
Social Environment, 21(7), 803-812. doi:10.1080/10911359.2011.616753
Jesuraj, Joe, Mariadhas (2012). Impact of Substance Abuse on Families. Rajagiri Journal
of Social Development 4(10) 34-44.