Cohen 1 Running head: End of The American Dream. The End of The American Dream and The Lost Generation Elizabeth Cohen Wagner College Cohen 2 After conducting an insightful interview with a Licensed Master Social Worker, who we will call Clare, it brought up some interesting thoughts I had in the back of my mind about drug addicted patients and social change. Clare always found a hobby in volunteering and helping others, which caused her to change her career path and goals and eventually go into Social Work. She currently works in an outpatient chemical dependency treatment center in New York City. All of her clients that she deals with on a daily basis have substance abuse issues. However, since Clare has her master’s degree and is licensed with experience in mental health disorders she gets a lot of mentally ill and chemically addicted clients as well. An example of this is a person who has been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder but also abuses alcohol and or drugs. Clare has had a lot of interesting experiences dealing with people from particular generations who are essentially left behind in society. As she explained to me during the interview, drug addiction does not come from nowhere, it occurs for multiple layered reasons. A main reason that drug addiction occurs is due to break down of the family structure, leading to lack of family support. The 1960’s in the United States was a time of rapid change and a breakdown of the 1950’s American family ideal. Women were going out of the home and back into the workforce as well as the feminist movement taking place. The baby boomer generations, generation X, were the youth which suffered from the 1960’s break down of the American family. Consequently, the baby boomer generation has the largest number of homeless drug addicts in America today (Browne, 1995). In my paper, I will go further in depth into how the baby boomer generation suffered under rapid social change, causing their generation to become lost for hope due to the end of the American Dream, which consequently caused them to be labeled as “the left behind generation.” Additionally, I Cohen 3 will give a brief history of homelessness in the United States and I will discuss Clare’s experiences in dealing with the drug addicted population in New York City and how her experiences add to reasons why generation X was at the highest risk. Poor laws and homelessness in the United States, as well as around the world, has a very fascinating history. Before the trend of American individualism there was no need for social services or charity of any kind. Neighbors, churches, families and the community at large were responsible for the well being of all people in their community (Axelson & Dail, 1988). Due to famines and crop failures between 1300 and 1800 England was the first country to implement an official poor law, The Elizabethan Poor Law of 1601, which reinforced that the poor and homeless were the responsibility of the local government. The Elizabethan Poor Law incorporated three categories of the poor that had to abide by certain regulations and follow procedures. The Able Bodied Poor was the group that was given low grade employment, and citizens were not aloud to offer them any kind of financial help. Anyone who refused to work was placed in jail or stocks. Lastly was the group titled, The Impotent Poor, who were those people who were unable to work due to being elderly, blind, deaf, a mother of young children, as well as anyone with a physical or mental disability. Moreover, these people were usually placed in Almshouse institutions (DuBois, 2008). The United States implemented laws for the poor that were very similar to the Elizabethan Poor Law. However, during the expansion of Western America, after the Civil War, poor laws were incredibly hard to implement. After American men, and many immigrants from Europe, returned from the Civil War the economy was a lot worse than when they had left and many of them had to go into incredibly low paid trade work that required very little skill. Most of these men slept in Cohen 4 rail stations and became homeless but would still go to work where they would make just enough money for food and alcohol. Society labeled these men, hobos. The world of hobos was incredibly dangerous and almost entirely male. Towards the end of the 19th century the industrial revolution had brought about machines which replaced most low paid trade workers. The hobo era came to an end around 1920 when America was well into the industrial age and the economy was the highest it had ever been (Axelson & Dail, 1988). The tramp and bum quickly settled into largely urban areas and were seen as the angry society members who were apart of the post 1920’s under paid, unskilled trade workers who evidently caused trouble in society. They were a roaming population of misfits, thieves and murderers. During the 1930’s a new homeless population emerged, whole families, due to home for closers which ultimately lead to the Great Depression in the United States. The larger society began to preach that helping the poor and homeless was unnatural, because as a society we needed the poor and homeless to die off and control population size (Axelson & Dail, 1988). Survival of the fittest, or better known as Social Darwinism, was taught to be the correct way to approach the problem of the poor and homeless, leaving society at large to be solely responsible for themselves and their own personal survival as well as responsible for the survival of their offspring (DuBois, 2008). This is still an ongoing debate in the United States, who should be responsible for the poor and homeless? Should it be the government and society, or should they pull themselves up by their boot straps and take care of themselves? This was the beginning of the American Dream. An ideal that every American held onto so tightly after the Great Depression and who most still religiously believe in today. Interestingly, the 1950’s brought about the Cohen 5 perfect American family ideal where everyone was essentially middle class, all lived in a suburban neighborhood, had two children, a dog, and always had a little extra money. Women were able to stay at home and take care of raising the children, cooking and maintaining the house while the men worked in their corporate jobs from nine to five. The homeless population was incredibly low and the few that were homeless were ignored by society (Axelson & Dail, 1988). During the 1960’s rapid change began to break down the American family ideal. Women were leaving the home, the feminist movement was beginning on a long journey, young boys were being drafted to Vietnam and the structure of the American family was falling apart. Not only that, but due to the sudden and incredible large growth in the American population in the twenty years post World War Two, the baby boomer generation had higher competition for resources that caused the homeless population to double and making them particularly vulnerable. Additionally, there was a sharp rise in female headed families that ultimately received lower income then male headed families (Browne, 1995). Moreover, the youth of generation X became increasingly less secure due to outside influences of a rapid changing society as well as inside influences of the breakdown of the family. Most youth turned to drugs and alcohol for an escape (Axelson & Dail, 1988). This is mostly the generation that Clare works with on a micro level. She conducts individual counseling sessions one-on-one with clients, as well as facilitating group therapy sessions. She also conducts various assessments to look for indicators of mental health issues which might never have been addressed before hand such as suicidal risk, or a history of mental and learning disabilities. Some of the roles she plays as a social worker is being a strong advocate, a councilor, and an educator. She needs to be able to Cohen 6 educate about risks of prolonged tobacco usage, warning signs of relapse and the short and long term effects that different drugs has on the body. Clare’s main function is to assist her clients in navigating through their substance use disorder along with other life stressors. An example of life stressors that long term drug users experience are stress on their mental health, medical health, personal and family relationships and legality issues they may be facing. While Clare has dealt with some very interesting clients in the baby boomer generation there is one client that she discussed in her interview. She began to tell me how important it is to realize that every client is different and therefore it is her job to assess the needs of that client by looking closely into their history to find out what motivates them, in order for them to achieve their personalized goal. She explained that a twenty five year old just released from five years of jail time due to felony drug sales and who is mandated for treatment but not interested in addressing his marijuana use, is in a much different place then a client who comes to her almost begging for help. When it comes to addressing an issue, people's motivation can be in different stages. Either they are in the stage of pre contemplation, contemplation, preparation/determination, action or maintenance. For Clare a specific case that really caused her to use her social work skills to the highest degree was when a sixty year old former intravenous heroin user had relapsed after eight years of sobriety. His addiction to heroin started when he was a teenager during the sixties and he had experienced an incredibly tough time giving up the heroine and had fallen into depression due to his relapse. Bergs-Winkels & Boehnke (2002) conducted a study about juvenile delinquency under conditions of rapid social change. The study shows that during any time of incredibly rapid social, cultural or Cohen 7 political change youth of that generation are seen as the generation that is deteriorating the already existent social fabric. This forces the youth to band together and perform radical behavior that goes against long standing traditions that are in the past. Most youth will engage in this behavior because it is unacceptable to the adults and broader mainstream society that are rejecting new ideas. Additionally, there seems to be a strong correlation between drug use due to rapid social change and youth who feel that the forces of change are overwhelming and therefore feeling a sense of injustice, which evidently leads them to engage in hostile counterculture behavior. This social change in most cases, including the sixties, to economic hardship which puts the family under severe stress and causes the parents to be less nurturing towards their children, less involved with their everyday lives and more focused on being a provider. There is subsequently a decrease in parental control which tends to adolescents experiencing more freedom to engage in drug behavior (BergsWinkels & Boehnke, 2002). Before seeing Clare he picked up alcohol because his marriage ended causing him to be in a very difficult place in his life. Throughout working with him by doing a lot of one on one counseling, as well as helping him to enroll in a twelve step relapse program, she was able to give him support by getting his family involved with the recovery. After discussing this particular case study with her I believe that I would have taken the same approach by involving the family. Because of the baby boomer generation of the 1960’s that he was born into I think it was a good idea to bring the family back together and involve them in his recovery so that he could realize that he does have a family structure that are willing to give him support. Although Clare’s client did not end up homeless he is still a good example of a person who is suffering due to being left behind by his generation. While American Cohen 8 culture and politics were rapidly changing he, like many others, were left without support and therefore stayed stagnant. Bourgois & Schonberg (2009) wrote an incredibly controversial ethnography which touches on this left behind generation. The ethnography explores the world of San Francisco's homeless heroin addicts, a group that live on the side of a highway who they call the Edgewater Boulevard community. Bourgois & Schonberg (2009) conducted their field work living with the community every day for over a decade and saw how this community had to work together in order to survive and feed their addiction. The authors explore racial boundaries, love stories, histories of childhood abuse, as well as relationships the addicts have with their families in past and present day. Additionally, they draw on how the Edgewater Boulevard community are constantly needing to navigate around hostile police enforcement and negative medical services that they receive. The study is focused on how this left behind generation of the 1960’s can and has turned into many people becoming heroine addicted and eventually homeless which puts them in a situation of ongoing personal and institutional violence. Material toll of addiction, infection and homelessness and the risks of ongoing personal and institutional violence from our modern day American individualistic society. As the ethnography and their field work comes to an end the authors suggest from their experience, the best way to go about handling drug addicts from the lost generation is to provide them with education, counseling and social services. Instead of treating them as the bottom of society and ignoring their presence as a society we need to eliminate our old values, which included ignoring the poor and homeless population which valued Social Darwinism and instead look to new ways that we can help integrate their generation back into society (Bourgois & Schonberg, 2009). Cohen 9 Overall as a social worker Clare finds her job not only fulfilling but incredibly important to this larger cultural phenomenon of drug use and generational change. As I was finishing her interview she explained to me that social work is not a job which lends itself to instant gratification, particularly in the method she practices of one-on-one counseling. The complete life change can be an extremely long process, which takes many of her patients between six and twelve months for her to work with them in the counseling process. Because the nature of substance abuse is a life long condition which requires a high degree of upkeep the best parts are often the small victories. For Clare this is seeing someone completely resistant to treatment have a change of heart of realizing that he never has to pick up heroine again and start to make progress. Additionally, having someone who is a quiet and inward person in group therapy finally open up about his or her depression and lack of family support as reasons why they have had a problem alcohol abuse. An area Clare wished she could change in the social work profession was that her work could be less undervalued by mainstream society, because it is an incredibly important job that is not a luxury but a necessity for particular subcultures and particular generations that live in our society and that struggle through everyday life. I was curious to find out if Clare struggled with becoming too attached to a client or invested in their situation. She explained that it takes a lot of skill and training to balance your personal concern and empathy for a client in a way where you can be effective, but not become too engrained in their life situation. There will be clients that stick with you and leave an impression but she told me that it is not beneficial for you or the client to attempt and cross into the friend zone. You are not building a friendship; instead it is a helping relationship, bounded by certain ethical obligations. Furthermore, I asked Clare if she Cohen 10 believed that the government should play a role in providing social service resources to people in the United States. She explained to me that the government is known for scratching their heads with confusion regarding teen suicide, gang violence and of course the substance abuse epidemic. However, they do not recall their decisions to cut or eliminate funds to social work programs aimed to address these exact social issues. As a social worker she believes that the role of the government should be the Banker. All they should do is allocate funds to social service programs so social workers who are trained will be able to give the best help and resources to their clients in need. Furthermore, I believe that I gained a lot of knowledge about social work by conducting an interview with Clare. I came to realize that the patients come from very complex backgrounds that are a combination of personal experiences, cultural conflict, social change and changes in family structure. I believe that the work Clare does is incredibly important to people from subcultures who have greatly suffered in our rapidly changing society. Additionally, I realized that these patients are connected to a larger cultural phenomenon at play that deserves more research. Leaving behind generation X and the breakdown of the fundamental American Dream. Cohen 11 Resources Axelson, L. J., & Dail , P. W. (1988). The changing character of homelessness in the Family Relations, 37(4), 463 - 469. Bergs-Winkels, D., & Boehnke, K. (2002). Juvenile delinquency under conditions of rapid social change. Sociological Forum, 17(1), 57 - 79. Bourgois, P., & Schonberg, J. (2009). Righteous dopefiend. (California series in public anthropology ed., Vol. 21). Berkeley, CA: Berkeley: University of California Press. Browne, I. (1995). The baby boom and trends in poverty, 1967-1987. Social Forces, 73(3), 1071-1095 . DuBois, B. & Miley, K. K. (2008). Social work: An empowering profession. Boston, MA: Pearson Education.