Essai en anglais - Points de vue sur la dépendance: document d'analyse de soi et de la famille (document en anglais)

From the country far from society, my older sister and I grew up to strong catholic values. We were taught to follow the 10 commandments of God, where one of them states to “Honor your father and your mother by treating them with respect and obedience”. We were always told that abusing any kind of drugs and alcohol was a sin. Living on a farm, therefor made us un-intentionally isolated from the world. As a result, we didn’t know any other way of thinking but of what our parents told us. In this paper, I will refer back to the different models of addiction that took place during my life span.

As a kid, I often recall thinking about how I didn’t know much about my grandmother’s family (my mom’s mom). Surprisingly, after she past away we found out the major reason why she raise her children in a strict catholic environment. My grandmother grew up within a large family where her father died at a young age from sickness. Later on, two of her brothers became alcoholics, which they would physically and sexually abuse her when they were intoxicated. She finally left home to live and work on her own, then got married and started a family. She raise her children to believe and follow a specific religion in order to keep them away from any kind of abuse (drugs and alcohol). The Moral Legal Perspective applies well with the way my grand-mother perceived addiction, “Drugs are the problem, people who use them are deviant or bad. The context is irrelevant”. She dedicated herself to her children and home. She seperates herself from any close relatives who once abused drugs and alcohol in order to protect her family from addictions.

To me, an addiction involves craving for something intensely, losing control over its use, to keep using despite other consequences that follows. Its not only which ever substances you abuse that causes addiction, but rather the reason for taking it. Many addicts are just lost individuals that can’t manage to find their way back. The addiction fills the empty feeling inside. I find that the Psychosocial Perspective would be the greatest way to look at an addiction. “This perspective sees the individual as struggling with inner problems that cause the addictive process”. This model also influences some parts of my life, like the implications for treatment include Psychosocial Rehab and individual therapy/counseling, which I had to go through during most of my childhood.

When I look back and think about the way my sister Melissa and I were raised, it feels like it was during a completely different time period than when my little sister Marie-Soleil was born. Between me and my little sister, my mom waited 7 years before having another child. Its during that time frame that our family’s belief and values started to change. My mother started psychotherapy to learn how to let go of her past and to be a better mom in the future. Which means her views on addictions slowly started to change. She was able to loosen herself up by accepting the change between generations. That is a huge aspect on why my younger sister Marie-Soleil who was born in 2002, doesn’t share quite the same views than us. Since then, my personal beliefs went from being based entirely according to my parent’s views to making my own.

My current beliefs are still related to the way I was raised by my parents under the influence of the catholic faith. I believe that God has a dream for each of us and it's to become the best good version of ourselves. Catholic life is about saying yes to the things that help us become a better person and no to the things that don't. The 10 commandments summarize the absolutes of moral and spiritual living. God intended for these laws to still instruct us today; by exposing what is sin and showing us God’s standard.

Ten Commandments

I. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of slavery in Egypt.

II. You shall have no other gods but me.

III. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.

IV. You shall

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