ABSTRACT

In the previous three chapters, we have described what we believe to be the common experience of being a close family member of someone whose consumption of alcohol or other drugs is excessive and problematic for the family. The experiences described, we conclude, are likely to be universal under those circumstances, irrespective of the socio-cultural group to which the family belongs. The second overall aim of the research summarised here was to explore the other side of the same coin, or the ways in which the experiences of family members in the face of drinking or drug problems might vary by socio-cultural group. Meeting that aim turned out to be more difficult than anticipated. Over and over again, while analysing the reports of interviews carried out in Mexico, England and Australia, we were impressed by the similarities. The frustration and despair of a father's brother in the face of continued excessive drinking and being ‘humbugged’ for money by his brother's daughter in remote indigenous Australia, for example, struck us as being essentially the same social phenomenon as described by a mother of a drug-using son in England or the wife of an excessively drinking husband in Mexico City, both hassled by their relatives for money to maintain their habits.