Following the cycle: The relation of substance abuse and homelessness

A dirty-ratted blanket lay on the cold cement with a navy blue backpack sitting close by. The backpack has seen many days, and there isn’t much hope of fitting anything else inside of it.

Dylan, a homeless man, sits in a downtown Wichita, Kansas park that has been locally titled, “Hobo Park.” It has been home from time to time for him throughout the past year.

Homelessness has become an increasingly growing issue in America, and substance abuse is one of the main reasons to blame. Homeless people are seated on busy street corners looking for money, drugs or alcohol during the day, and they

are left to strive for a place to sleep at night.

“Most people here don’t expect people to be homeless or asking for money because it’s not a side that these people see and honestly they just don’t want to see the bad parts of their city, which is fine because sometimes we don’t wanna be seen,” Dylan, a 37-year old male, said with a raspy chuckle.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration estimates 64 percent of homeless people have issues with either drug or alcohol abuse.

Dylan grew up in Leadville, Colorado, and he always dealt with drug and alcohol issues.

“When I was a teenager, I was a dealer, and it was so easy to not get caught. My parents didn’t know, my friends all bought from me, and I got to go high to school everyday. But I had a good grasp on what was too much for me- I don’t have that today,” Dylan said.

Once Dylan moved away from home to go to college in Kentucky, he stopped dealing drugs because he didn’t have his regular “hook-up,” the person he often went to in order to give him drugs to sell. He found a similar group of friends in college that loved to go out and party regularly.

Throughout his time in college, he acquired a DUI, two arrests and received an academic suspension. At age 22, his parents got their first look into the struggles Dylan constantly grappled and dealt with his entire life.

“One day I got a phone call from Dylan, and he simply said ‘Don’t freak out, but I got arrested, and I’m not coming home for Christmas,’ and at the time I didn’t know which I was more angry about. I thought the drinking was just a phase, and we could help him deal with it, but I didn’t realize how deep into everything he was,” Brenda Voth, Dylan’s mom, said.

Dylan’s parents tried to help him throughout college by checking in by Skype often, but they just weren’t available to travel to him to truly get him the help he needed because of their busy schedules in Colorado. They didn’t think about rehab or counseling because they didn’t realize the depth of Dylan’s issues.

The struggle to find a home

Once out of college, Dylan moved in with his high school group of friends back in Colorado, and his parents felt like they had finally gotten a grasp on the alcoholic habits.

“He would come over sometimes to see us, and every time he seemed lively and sober, so we thought he had figured out his problems and had found a solution by being back home with his family and even friends,” Voth said.

Dylan lived with his friends for almost a year until he started getting behind on rent payments. He started smoking weed again because his friends were dealing drugs to him for cheap. He kept spending his money on drugs, so when it came time for the rent to be paid - he had no money.

His friends let him live with them for two months free, and they finally kicked him out.

“I knew once I was kicked out with my guys, I wouldn’t go home. I was not about to walk up to my parents needing a home because I knew they would make me stop smoking because that’s just who they are,” Dylan said.

Dylan began a theme homeless people often begin of “mattress hopping.” He would try to find friends around town willing to let him stay over for a couple of nights or even sometimes longer for free. He went from house to house for nearly six months until he lost his job as a store clerk.

“I lost my job so there was nothin’ holding me back from leaving. I didn’t really care about the job anyways, but it was money,” Dylan said.

Once he walked out of work from being fired from his bus boy job, he noticed his car had been broken into and torn apart. The tires were missing, and certain parts from the engine were gone, along with all his lose change in the car.

Dylan suspects the people that ripped off his car were drug dealers that wanted their money back.

“I’m sure they wanted to kill me, but instead of get caught [killing me]- they could easily rip off my car. So I walked to my friends house, packed all my stuff into this backpack and hitched a ride to wherever they was going,” Dylan said.

He made it to Wichita, Kansas a month later from hitchhiking. He followed the same patterns from high school and college with drugs and alcohol until one day he was arrested for slapping a police officer’s horse while intoxicated.

The cop’s took him to the hospital to sober up and get the medical attention that he needed. The police called Dylan’s family, and they rushed to Wichita to take care of Dylan.

“We had no idea he was in Wichita. We just thought it had been a while since he visited, but we still thought he was living with his friends in Colorado, so we were shocked to get the phone call,” Voth said.

The road to getting sober

Dylan’s parents drove him back home to Colorado to keep him sober and attempt to help his addictions.

Dylan tried to hide his addiction from his parents, and he would often try to make it seem like he had made a full recovery. He hid alcohol around the house in unused cabinets or in toolboxes in the garage. His family enrolled him into a “halfway house” that works to help people stop their addictions in a safe living environment.

CJ Byler, a therapist that specializes in substance abuse, said, “A halfway house is a usually pretty effective resource for families and people struggling with addiction because they offer housing and a support system to keep the patients sober. The bad part is if they break the rules of staying sober then they are once again kicked out.”

Dylan liked his new living situations because it was winter, and he didn’t want to sleep outside while it was snowing. He began to make friends, attend AA meetings, and recover from his addictions.

“I was clean for about a year- had a nice job, some good friends, a car, and it was cool being home, but, hey I liked alcohol and just wanted to live life instead of constantly worrying about money or getting sh*t done for someone else,” Dylan said.

“When an alcoholic doesn’t meet such basic needs, it is less likely that treatment and recovery will occur. This can lead to frustration and depression, which in turn fuels more alcoholic abuse,” according to Michaels’ house, a treatment facility for substance abuse in Palm Springs, California

The cycle continues

After a year of being sober and clean from drugs, Dylan began to fall back into his habits of nightly drinking and smoking because of the weight of work responsibilities as a social worker and the surprise loss of his father.

“Most people suffering with addiction will have to return to a halfway house or any other form of therapy around four to five times before they actually make any progress just because of the addictive state they are in,” Byler said.

He once again lost his job, and the halfway house staff kicked him out of the home for breaking the ‘no alcohol and no drugs’ rule. He went in and out of the halfway home for about two years, and finally his mother told him they weren’t going to pay for it anymore.

“It came to a point where we were just being crutches to him instead of actually helping him heal. This was the hardest thing for me to do because as a mother, I wanted to help him and fix him and take the weight of this addiction off his shoulders, but I can’t. He has to want to change, and I just didn’t see him wanting to change,” Voth said.

Dylan cut ties with his family and drove back to Wichita. He didn’t know where he was going to live, but he wanted to get away from his home and friends in Colorado because he felt like they just wanted him to change.

“Everyone just thought I had gone from the top to the bottom, and I just didn’t want that kind of sad vibe in my life so I left, and I’ve been here since,” Dylan said.

He has not talked to his family since they discontinued their relationship, and he continues to live in “Hobo Park” in Wichita.

“If I’m not here then I’m in prison or the hospital because they will make me sober up for the night. They let me call someone, but I don’t really have someone to call anymore- no one got money for that here,” Dylan said.

According to Michaels’ house around two-thirds of homeless people reported that substance abuse was a major cause of their homelessness.

The story of Jessica

Cell phone in hand, blanket wrapped around her shoulder and a large brown purse are kept nearby while awaiting the next phone call.

Another example of homelessness from substance abuse comes from a single mother in Springdale, Arkansas.

Jessica, age 33, is a mother of three, and she is addicted to heroin. She got pregnant with her first child out of wedlock when she was in college, so she never got the chance to graduate. Her child’s father is not in the picture, so Jessica’s mother, Stephanie Conour, helped take care of her child.

“I never struggled with drugs when I was pregnant with my first child, but once I was done being pregnant I started drinking socially- it’s not the problem though,” Jessica said.

Byler said, “People often start having issues with substance abuse when they are dealing with mental issues like depression or family related stressors such as financial issues.”

Jessica lived in her apartment with her daughter until her daughter turned 13, and Jessica became pregnant again.

“I freaked out when I got pregnant again. I finally went into the doctor when I started getting fatter, and she told me I was having twins- I really freaked out then,” Jessica said.

Jessica gave birth to her twins, and she began simultaneously taking heroin while breastfeeding. One day Jessica’s mother came over to check on the twins, and noticed the drugs in the bathroom. She immediately took action and took the kids with her.

Jessica was kicked out of her apartment later that month because she lost her job. She wasn’t allowed to return back inside her home to get any of her personal items. She called Conour to come help, and she was taken home to rejoin her kids.

“My mom laid down strict rules for me to stop doing heroin, but I didn’t have a job so I just laid around all day listening to crying kids, and I needed an escape. I shot up plenty of times at my mother’s house, and that’s why she kicked me out,” Jessica said.

Byler said, “Oftentimes people with substance abuse end up homeless because of their constant need to fulfill their addiction. They keep going in a cycle of wanting to get better, getting better, and then returning to their old habits.”

Byler continued to say that a strong family and friend group can go a long way, but sometimes it can be hurtful to the person’s growth.

Jessica tried mattress hopping for around six months because her mother didn’t want her near the kids with drugs in her system.

“Finally I got so pissed my mom wouldn’t let me see my own kids- I just cut her out of my life. I still text my kids, but like I don’t really see them, and I don’t know when I will be able to cause I don’t want them seeing me like this. I wouldn’t want them following my footsteps, but still my mom shouldn’t have a choice in pushing me away from them,” Jessica said.

Left on the streets

Jessica was arrested for possession of heroin, and she spent six months in jail.

“I know the cops called my mother, which is embarrassing, but I knew she wasn’t going to bail me out,” Jessica said.

After her six months in jail, she tried to return to mattress hopping, but her friends stopped letting her into their home for fear of getting caught by the police.

“They wouldn’t let me stay with them because they had their own heroin, and they didn’t want caught. The cops probably had a close eye on me, and they didn’t want the risk of a surprise visit, which I understand, but still it left me on the streets,” Jessica said.

Jessica now spends her nights finding places to sleep around Springdale. She tries to make it into homeless shelters for the night, but sometimes they are full before she can reach them.

Homeless people struggle to find proper shelter. They are often left to sleep in the cold, rain, and blizzards because of a shelter shortage.

“If I ever felt sick from the weather when I was sleeping outside- I would just shoot up to solve the problem and put me to sleep- kind of a never ending cycle,” Jessica said.

Jessica hopes to start attending a heroin addict recovery group in order to turn her life around, so she can be a mother.

“Sometimes families help the person struggling so much that they don’t learn from their mistakes because they will always have an outlet there to save them from whatever issues they run into. It is really hard to step away from your child, sibling or friend when they are struggling, but sometimes they need to hit their lowest low in order to want to make a change, so honestly, it’s not ideal, but sometimes you just have to let things play out” Byler said.

The person struggling has to want to make a change, and family and friends can help encourage them, but they can’t force someone to change who they are.

Time and time again there are episodes of “Intervention” made about families trying to save their loved ones from substance abuse.

Alcoholic and drug related addictions have been around for years, and the data from Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration shows the numbers of homeless people with substance abuse issues are consistently growing.

“Substance abuse affects thousands of Americans, and they truly need our help and encouragement to get out of their cycle” Byler said.

If you or someone you know struggles with substance abuse, please call the free, confidential Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration National helpline (in English or Spanish) at 1-800-662-HELP.