Addiction Discriminates? What That Means in Today’s Troubled Economy

For decades now, addiction has been branded “an equal opportunity disease.” And judging from the largely white, middle-class people who populate most AA meetings and rehabs, it is. But while no sector of society is immune from substance abuse, addiction does discriminate. Examples abound: "drug problems" among college grads is nearly a third lower than those for high school dropouts, according to the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse and Health. Unemployed people are twice as likely to be addicts as people with jobs. With America facing the greatest income gap since the Great Depression, the largely unpublicized link between financial inequality and drug addiction suggests big trouble ahead.

Of course, the causal connection between poverty and substance use runs both ways. People who are suffering from alcohol or drug problems are obviously more likely to drop out of school or lose their jobs, while those who don't have the education and skills to find a job in this fast-changing, increasingly high-tech economy not only increase face increased odds of addiction but also dramatically lower odds of recovery.

Americans earning less than $20,000 a year are half as likely to successfully quit smoking—and nearly one third less likely to end a cocaine addiction—than those making $70,000 a year or more. Addiction is disproportionately concentrated among the poor, and, consequently, among blacks and Hispanics. If we continue to ignore the special role that the lack of education and employment play in fermenting the growing drug problem, we are likely to leave them out of the solution when it comes to crafting treatment and prevention.

Read more on the AlterNet website.

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