Homeless Alcoholics May Begin Drinking as Children: The Reasons Behind Alcohol-Dependency

Homeless alcoholics are often criticized and stigmatized by both the public and policymakers. But researchers may have found out why these men and women end up in the situations that they do. It turns out that one of the reasons that they are incapable of escaping their social circumstances is that most of them began drinking and became alcohol dependent while they were still children.

In order to better understand what factors might influence alcoholism among the homeless, the researchers interviewed 20 homeless, alcohol-dependent patients. They found that all began drinking in childhood or adolescence, and 13 had alcoholic parents. In addition, 13 reported abuse in their childhood homes and 19 were either forced to or chose to leave their home by the age of 18.

"One hundred percent of patients enrolled in the study began drinking alcohol as child, becoming alcohol-dependent shortly thereafter," said Ryan McCormack, one of the researchers, in a news release. "For people who have homes and jobs, it is difficult to imagine the level of despair these people experience day in and day out, or the all-consuming focus on getting the next drink that overrides even the most basic human survival instinct. Most do not come to my ER voluntarily, but end up there because of public intoxication. The majority of patients in this study consistently left the hospital prior to the completion of medical care."

In fact, alcoholism was cited as the primary reason for living on the street among all of the 20 people interviewed for the study. In addition, all of the patients had entered a dextoxification program at some point in their pasts.

"As their capacity to envision a future diminishes, they increasingly lose motivation for personal recovery," said McCormack. "An alcoholic is first a human being. We hypothesize that more accessible, lower-barrier, patient-centered interventions that support alcohol harm reduction and quality of life improvement can be translated into the emergency department setting and this population."

The findings were published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine.