PARENTING AND SUBSTANCE ABUSE: A FRAMEWORK FOR PREVENTION AND RECOVERY IN AKWA IBOM STATE

Text of a Keynote Address
Presented by
Fr. Donatus Ukpong
Mobile Manna Foundation, Nigeria
at the Official Launch of Akwa Ibom State Drug Control Committee
on April 17, 2023 at Ibom Hall, Uyo

Introduction

It is a privilege for me to be invited to give a keynote address at the official launch of the Akwa Ibom State Drug Control Committee, an organization formed to provide a framework for effective responses to the monster of drug abuse in Akwa Ibom State. I truly appreciate the effort of the Akwa Ibom State Government led by Deacon Udom Emmanuel and our dear First Lady, Dr. (Mrs.) Martha Udom Emmanuel, for establishing the Akwa Ibom Drug Control Committee (AKSDCC) at this crucial juncture in our global struggle against drug misuse. May the God of the Universe grant success to the work of our hands.

I got involved in mental healthcare and addiction management as a priest as far back as 1999. In 2008, we established the Mobile Manna Foundation to provide these services to Nigerians in a sustainable manner, with a vision to offer world-class mental healthcare and addiction management services in Akwa Ibom State. We are still a long way from our vision, but we are resolutely on course. I pray that God will help us in our resolve to alleviate the pain and suffering of our brothers and sisters who may seek our help.

A 2010 study conducted by our Foundation discovered that the primary cause of mental illness for young men in the Uyo metropolis was drug misuse, with 80% of the wandering men in the city having a history of substance abuse. We also found that 70% of abandoned women on the streets had challenging childhoods, having grown up with a parent who had a problem with alcohol abuse. Of these women, 45% also had a personal history of substance abuse. Additionally, 83% of the abandoned females on the streets of the Uyo metropolis were suffering from depression associated with abusive relationships and postpartum issues. This data has been useful to our Foundation in the services we have provided so far.

Substance abuse is a significant problem in our contemporary society, with millions—more than 15 million—of people nationwide struggling with addiction to drugs and alcohol, according to the UNODC World Drug Report 2022. One of the most effective ways to address this issue is to prevent it from happening in the first place. Today, we are here to examine how substance abuse can be prevented and its harm reduced in Akwa Ibom State. I decided to reframe the topic I was given to read: “Parenting and Substance Abuse: A Framework for Prevention and Recovery in Akwa Ibom State.”

I believe we must do everything possible to prevent substance abuse in our state. And when it does occur—as we don’t have a 100% guarantee of success—we need to know what to do to help the victims recover from the harm. The problem of substance abuse has been with humanity for a long time, and it’s reasonable to think that it may not be going away anytime soon. We simply can’t allow it to shatter our common humanity. To this end, we need to be both proactive and reactive to the issues of drug abuse, treatment, and rehabilitation in our state.

We are going to focus on parenting for a drug-free culture to ensure the productivity and health of future generations of Akwa Ibomites. It is my intention to provide strategic thinking for parents and caregivers on how to raise drug-free children and explore risk factors that can lead to substance abuse, including genetic, environmental, and social factors. We urge the Akwa Ibom State Drug Control Committee to consider a legal framework that can empower effective prevention of and recovery from drug abuse in Akwa Ibom State. I hope that the committee’s activities will yield the expected results, helping us to destroy the destroyer in our dear state.

Understanding Parenting Today

The family is a fundamental unit of society. The civil and spiritual lives of citizens revolve around the education they receive from their families. It is from the family that the ideals of being human are transmitted to a child. This responsibility—of transmitting ideals and forming a child to respond properly to environmental stimuli—is the core of parenting. Parenting is the art of forming a human being to integrate successfully into the norms and expectations of both their immediate and wider societies, so that the child can grow to assume an independent life in a well-adjusted manner.

Parenting can be defined as a process of raising, promoting, and supporting a person physically, socially, intellectually, emotionally, economically, and spiritually from childhood to adulthood. This process is not limited to biological parents but extends to other adult members of society who have an affinity for or are related to the child. Today, many resources are available, both offline and online, to assist people with the art of parenting.

Permit me to broaden our idea of parenting to include everyone responsible for the holistic development of the weaker members of society, specifically every caregiver in all its forms. It is our collective responsibility to form and educate the younger generations to align their actions and words with acceptable cultural standards, prevailing legal structures, and religious sensibilities to sustain peace, security, and enhance human dignity.

Therefore, parenting cannot be the sole responsibility of the biological man or woman who brought a child into this world, nor merely of the child’s blood relations. All responsible and accountable adult members of society must assume this role to promote a civilization of love today. For Christians, God is our Father; to this extent, He is our primal parent. God entrusts this role to human leaders at various levels, especially political and religious leaders. Therefore, all leaders should see themselves as those assigned by God to care for the weak and vulnerable and as those called by God to parent the present and future generations.

Education is a fundamental driver of parenting. To educate means to bring out a person’s hidden potential, to bring to actuality what is in potency, to awaken their innate or dormant capacities. The human person is philosophically defined as “a bundle of possibility” by Martin Heidegger. Parenting is a question of which possibility one will choose to bring out from this person: the good or the bad; the beautiful or the ugly; the saint or the sinner, etc. Bringing out these possibilities is not like throwing dice that simply turn up either good or bad, famous or infamous. It is a consistent process of choosing what one considers the ideal and patiently and dutifully inculcating the same into the child.

Based on the focus of this workshop, I consider parenting to be the process of guiding a child to develop in a way that they depend on inner, legitimate, approved, and honorable resources to navigate their independent life in the pursuit of happiness. It is a sign of failed or misplaced adjustment for any person to rely on external substances that are not culturally, legally, and spiritually recommended for self-development and preservation. The foundation of this failure is irresponsible, half-measured, and shallow parenting by all involved in the upbringing of a child. This fact can be traumatizing for many because some children, supposedly raised well by responsible and accountable parents, still end up dependent on substances. This is a real problem of evil.

Understanding Substance Abuse

Drug abuse, substance abuse or misuse, and substance use disorder (SUD) are related and can mean the same thing in a general sense. The term drug abuse refers to the excessive and persistent self-administration of a drug without regard to medically or culturally accepted patterns. This could also mean the non-medical use of a drug that interferes with a healthy and productive life.

Drug, in this context, is a substance that is not necessary for the maintenance of normal health but whose administration alters a person’s biological functions. This becomes abuse when it is administered in harmful and excessive quantities due to the illusionary belief that without it, life is not meaningful, pleasurable, or successful.

Substance abuse is a self-inflicted erosion of willpower and the gradual enthronement of synthetic or natural external particles as a demigod of the self. It is a dependency on a self-made god. Therefore, substance abuse is a state in which a person feels that their life depends on the substance and that normal activity is not possible without using it.

Let me observe that several risk factors can increase the likelihood of substance abuse. These include genetic, environmental, and social factors. Genetic factors refer to an individual’s biological predisposition to addiction, which can be passed down through family members. Environmental factors include exposure to drugs and alcohol, stress, trauma, and mental illness. Social factors refer to the influence of peers, media, and culture on an individual’s attitudes and behavior.

In contemporary societies, drugs commonly abused by adolescents are amphetamines, anabolic steroids, alcohol, marijuana (cannabis or Indian hemp), cocaine, heroin, caffeine, barbiturates, narcotics, inhalants, codeine, and cough syrup. These drugs have excitatory or inhibitory effects that are often thought to enhance performance in sports by delaying the onset of fatigue or hastening the recovery rate after energy-draining work or exercise. The goal of substance use is to feel better, perform better, and be stronger. This is a fallacy of misplaced hope and an illusionary grandiose self.

Survey of Substance Abuse in Akwa Ibom State

Substance abuse has become a significant public health issue in many states, including Akwa Ibom State. Millions of people struggle with addiction to drugs and alcohol, and the consequences of substance abuse can be devastating for individuals, families, and communities. Akwa Ibom State is fast becoming a dense spot for the production, trafficking, and consumption of various substances of abuse.

According to the National Guidelines for the Treatment of Substance Use Disorders for Nigeria (2019): “SUD is a global health problem that causes significant burdens for the individuals affected, their families, and communities. In Nigeria, there is evidence that drug use and drug use disorders are increasing, especially opioid use disorders involving opioid medication. Both the country and its population are negatively impacted by SUD. SUD is now understood to be a complex, multifactorial health problem with psychosocial, environmental, and biological determinants.”

The NDLEA “has arrested a total of 272 suspects and seized 339.81kg of hard drugs in Akwa Ibom State in 2021.” The current statistic is far more than this today. The agency is here to give us more information on the current situation of substance abuse in our state.

From 2011 to date, the Mobile Manna Foundation has assisted 1,835 clients who have visited our centers for substance use disorder-related treatment. The percentage of male clients is far greater than female clients, with females making up about 30% of those who sought help from us during this period. This is only data from one treatment facility. We need to collect data from other treatment facilities in the State to truly understand the rate of substance use disorders. We can be certain that drug use, drug use disorders, and drug trafficking are common evil phenomena in Akwa Ibom State. Therefore, responsible parents should be wary of the situation and act proactively to preserve their children from this menace. The establishment of the AKSDCC is a step in the right direction.

A Framework for Prevention of and Recovery from Substance Abuse

This is the thrust of this keynote address: designing a framework for preventing our children from becoming victims of substance use disorders and how to assist them in retracting from this harmful lifestyle. This is the heart of successful parenting.

Children from so-called “successful homes” are said to be immune to substance abuse. The common perception is that those who abuse drugs are children from families that are not solid. This may not be completely true. As I said earlier, drug abuse is a problem of evil. No one can claim to be exempt from evil while still alive. The role of biological parents in raising their children is fundamental. With proper parenting skills, parents can help their children be less prone to substance abuse. I hope this workshop will offer parents practical tips in this direction.

We must, therefore, look at the prevention framework in a broad way and decide on an evidence-based recovery mechanism if we are to be realistic about the evil of substance use disorders in our state. We need to frame our prevention strategies to include building up strong families, where parents are in a position—culturally, economically, socially, and spiritually—to influence their children’s decisions. Therefore, family support should be seen as an essential duty of the government and religious organizations.

There should be centers for counseling families and helping them resolve their human crises and deepen their bonding. To this end, proper identification and profiling of families in Akwa Ibom State is essential in the fight against drug use and crime. It is the duty of the government to ensure the sustainability of family values by strengthening parents to be parents. A government that neglects the welfare of its vulnerable citizens is laying the foundation for future insecurity and criminality.

We also have to step up our recovery mechanism by ensuring there are accessible and affordable treatment plans for those with substance use disorders. We are grateful to the European Union, which funded the “Response to Drug and Related Organized Crime in Nigeria” for a significant period. The ball is now in the court of our governments at various levels to make treatment available in our communities. This is how we are called to be parents today: to deliver and save our children from evil; to confront evil with a superior power and defeat it through our commitment and consistency in doing what meets international standards. In framing prevention and treatment mechanisms, we must think globally but act locally.

Permit me, therefore, to remind the Akwa Ibom State Drug Control Committee to adopt international standards in framing prevention and recovery from substance use disorder in the state. We are expected, among other things, to provide:

1. Available, accessible, attractive, and appropriate SUD treatment.
2. Ethical standards of care.
3. Effective coordination between health, criminal justice, and social care.
4. Evidence-based SUD treatment that responds to the needs of individuals.
5. A response to the specific needs of specific populations with SUD.
6. Good clinical governance in SUD treatment.
7. An integrated approach to SUD treatment.

These are the core procedures of the National Guidelines for the Treatment of Substance Use Disorders for Nigeria. Many good sons and daughters of Akwa Ibom State have made significant global contributions through their research on substance use disorders. We must tap into their wealth of knowledge and expertise to position the state for maximum service delivery. I thank God that our amiable, glamorous, intelligent, and God-fearing First Lady, Dr. (Mrs.) Martha Udom Emmanuel, is personally involved in this battle. I believe that she will continue to be our leader in strengthening mental healthcare and addiction treatment and in kicking out substance abuse in the state.

In conclusion, I thank you for listening to me while praying that this program will not be just a talk show. We are going to help parents with their work of parenting the future generations of Akwa Ibomites, and we will design a specific, measurable, achievable, and time-bound framework for the prevention and treatment of substance use disorder, which is fast becoming a pandemic in Akwa Ibom State. Yes, we can be good parents. We can be successful in parenting the Akwa Ibomites of our dreams, raising compatriots who will excel in science and technology, be profoundly human, and deeply spiritual. Yes, we can raise generations whose lifestyle choices will respect the law of the land, and above all, the eternal law of God inscribed in their conscience. Yes, let us rise to parent a new generation of drug-free citizens. Yes, we can win the war against drugs. Thank you.