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Substance Abuse And Domestic Violence Essay

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In this paper I will be addressing the correlation that is between substance abuse and domestic violence. There are many factors that play a role in why domestic violence occurs in a home; this paper will be focusing on the factor of drug abuse in particularly. Early on in the course we learned that domestic violence does not only pertain to intimate partner violence but also to child abuse, elder abuse, and any other abuse of a person that occurs with inside the home. I will be providing research from scholarly journals that support the findings that substance abuse is related to domestic violence on all levels (intimate partner violence, child abuse, and elderly abuse). Research has proven that drugs impair ones cognitive processing which can lead to persons acting out of character and or crossing social boundaries such as physical violence. The American Public Health Association reports that “drug use induces cognitive disruption and impairs the ability to process social interactions for the perpetrator and victim of intimate partner violence. These cognitive disruptions may lead to paranoia, impair judgment, and distort cues, increasing the likelihood of a violent interaction” (El-Bassel, Gilbert, Wu, Go, & Hill, 2005). Another journal said “We know that different drugs have widely varying physiological and behavioral effects, so we can conclude that it is likely drug use will also have varying effects on domestic violence perpetration” (Stuart, Temple, Follansbee,

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