Alienation, Human Transformation and Adolescent Drug Use: Toward a Reconceptualization of the Problem

Abstract

Drug related dependencies and alcohol addiction have become in many ways characteristic of the American way of life. Having reached down to America's children, the rampant spread of alcoholism and drug abuse remains one of this country's most pressing unsolved problems, with many scholars recognizing that no single factor can explain its etiology or serve as the basis of its remediation. In this article, the author reviews the conventional conceptualization of the problem and provides the basis of a reconceptualization which has the potential for explicating how seriously alcoholism may be embedded in the fundamental American cultural fabric. In this regard, it is suggested that adolescent alcoholism may be symptomatic of the crisis found in the American value base wherein there is a gap between the meaning of human being and the experience of human being which results in a self-conscious sense of alienation. The implication of this work suggest that the remediation of adolescent alcoholism requires the transformation of American culture. The author briefly suggest that an African based transformation may be what is needed.