A birthday party got out of hand. A teenage boy lies slumped under a bridge. It’s not the first time this has happened, nor will it be the last. Shrouded in a drunken oblivion, the boy is unaware of the danger he has placed himself and his family in. Disorderly conduct, underage drinking and drinking without a licence threaten not only his well-being, but also his parents’ livelihoods and the educational prospects of his siblings.
Drugs and alcohol ruin lives. This is true the world over. In Muslim nations, where the drug laws are often more pronounced, so too are the consequences.
Mental-health professionals have spent decades trying to predict who among us is most likely to develop an addiction (a substance-related disorder). If we can predict, then we can prevent – at least in theory. There are few behavioural health problems that are more worthy of prevention than addiction. If there were a gene for drug addiction, it would be inconsequential so long as the person carrying the hypothetical gene never tried drugs in the first place. Once addicted however, many people face a lifelong revolving door of rehab and relapse.
What exactly is it that makes some people more likely to try and ultimately abuse drugs? Personality is one factor. Those who are more impulsive and emotionally reactive have been found to be more likely to develop problems with drugs and alcohol. Unfortunately, we can’t do too much about personality. So it is better to focus on those predictive factors that are potentially easier to address.
Research in many nations, including Gulf countries, suggests that one common factor implicated in starting to use drugs, is excessive unsupervised free time, or as it is also sometimes framed, poor parental supervision. Expatriate families often have poor social support networks, so unsupervised free-time for some children is far more likely. When parents are otherwise engaged, there might not be any aunties, cousins, old family friends or grandparents around to help out. Similarly, there is less apprehension on the child’s part that they will get spotted when they are behaving badly outside the home.
It’s also possible that simply being an expatriate child carries some risks for the development of addiction. Rootless and restless, expatriate children can often feel like impostors who are not truly at home anywhere. They have lifestyles that differ from those found in their home nations and from those of the host nation. For a youngster still trying to form a coherent identity this can be a particularly challenging experience.
Back in the 1950s, social scientists John and Ruth Hill Useem began studying expatriate communities in India, and they coined the phrase “third culture kids” (TCKs).
Subsequent research has suggested that TCKs can be particularly prone to depression, anxiety and substance abuse. (There are positive traits too.) Some psychologists suggest that the experience of TCKs can be similar to that of recurrent grief, in that they are forever losing friends when they, or their friends, move on.
Are the stresses of being a TCK, and the relatively greater amounts of unsupervised time, leading to problem drinking and other behaviours among expat teenagers here in the UAE? There are certainly anecdotal reports that this is the case. Almost every weekend I hear reports of concerned parents taking to social media to warn of raucous goings on involving alcohol, gas, solvents and other substances.
The first place to address such issues is, of course, within the home. However, there is also a clear need for schools to have well-qualified professionals who are able to work with students one-to-one, as well as spearhead broader preventative approaches.
In my experience, school counsellors, if they exist at all, are often grossly underresourced and tend only to be used reactively. If we are to further promote national well-being, this is one area that has to improve. As for TCK drug and alcohol use, this is a very important topic for further research and surveillance.
Justin Thomas is an associate professor of psychology at Zayed University and author of Psychological Well-Being in the Gulf States
On Twitter: @DrJustinThomas
