Volume 4 • Issue 3 • 1000152 J Addict Res Ther ISSN:2155-6105 JART an open access journal Review Article Open Access Addiction Research & Therapy Jacobs and Jacobs, J Addict Res Ther 2013, 4:3 http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2155-6105.1000152 Narratives on Alcohol Dependence in the Family in Post-Apartheid South Africa Liezille Jacobs 1 * and Julian Jacobs 2 1 Population Health, Health Systems and Innovation, Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa 2 Research Use and Impact Assessment (RIA), Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa Keywords: Family; Narratives; Parentiication; Alcohol Abuse; Post-Apartheid South Africa Introduction Nguni proverb ‘umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu’: “I am what I am because of who we all are” [1]. Ubuntu is derived from the above African proverb that refers to a particular philosophy; African humanism, an ethic or world view which reveals how interconnected the family life cycle is in South Africa [1]. his manuscript refers to the concept of Ubuntu as a model of learnt behaviour rooted in an ecological system’s theory which frames this research. Truan [2] explicates this notion of Ubuntu by citing Van den Berg’s [3] opinion that “no one is neurotic unless made neurotic by society”. It should be taken into account that the ecological system’s theory loosely deined means that human being’s thoughts, feelings and experiences are the products of a system of meanings that exist at an environmental rather than an individual level [4]. In other words, depending on where a person grew up, the manner in which someone was socialized culturally and historically would explain their beliefs, attitudes and perceptions of alcohol dependence [5]. his implies that human beings cannot be interpreted out of their lived context, South Africans live out the concept of Ubuntu and this should be kept in mind when seeking to understand the phenomenon of alcohol dependence in the family context in post-apartheid South Africa. Traumatic events, like Apartheid and its policies [6] such as the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, 1949, the Immorality Amendment Act, 1950, and others had a very destructive consequence to the family structure before the 1994 democratic regime in South Africa. For instance, the Immorality Amendment Act made sure that a mixed-race couple who had children, did not live together. his would result in defragmentation of the family because the child will grow up in a single-parent family. In an ideal world children would be raised by both parents and functionally grow up with minimal exposure to violence, alcohol consumption or any other related trauma such as political violence and injustice. So, because of apartheid policies like the Immortality Amendment Act, families were torn apart because a White a and Black African or Coloured couple, for instance, could not live together. his policy created stressors on the family unit which lead to the abuse of alcohol as a primary substance of choice [7]. Various studies indicate that a single parent family, stressful life events, among others, risk behaviours in single-parent families included use of alcohol [8,9]. Other laws like the Group Areas Act, 1950, and the Pass Law Act, 1952, were the corner stone of apartheid. he Group Areas Act, the Native (Urban Areas) Consolidated Act of 1945, as well as the Native Administration Act, 1927 coerced physical separation of races in South Africa, forcing Black people out of urban areas and creating a racial divide according to clearly demarcated areas. he Group Areas Act (Act No 41 of 1950) implemented the grand design of physical separation of the races (Coloureds, Indians, Africans and Whites). It speciied separate residential areas for the diferent racial groups. As a means of removing black communities living in ‘White’ areas to their own separate areas, it proved particularly efective. Bufer strips separated the residential areas [10]. For example, before the Group Areas Act, Abstract Objective: This study highlights how alcohol dependence in the context of family development in post-apartheid South Africa results in inordinately large social, economic and health problems in society at all levels. The main research question was how did your drinking affect your family? Methods: The life story interview method was used to investigate how 10 married mothers and single lesbians’ drinking inluenced their children and family’s development. How the participants make sense of their worlds in general and how such person-and context-speciic systems of meaning-making or discourses impacted on their alcohol dependent experience within the family context was captured using a discourse analytical approach and presented with themes. Results: This study’s main inding is that because Apartheid’s policies disintegrated the family system and the notion of Ubuntu was lost, the women were prone to alcohol dependency. Conclusion: This study cautions policy makers to become more aware of the uniquely deined construct of a family in the context post Apartheid policies and of alcohol dependence in post-apartheid South Africa and to consider the development of family-based treatment models. *Corresponding author: Liezille Jacobs, Population Health, Health Systems and Innovation, Human Sciences Research Council, P Bag X9182, Cape Town, 8000, South Africa, Email: liezillejacobs.phd@gmail.com Received April 17, 2013; Accepted June 12, 2013; Published June 26, 2013 Citation: Jacobs L, Jacobs J (2013) Narratives on Alcohol Dependence in the Family in Post-Apartheid South Africa. J Addict Res Ther 4: 152. doi:10.4172/2155- 6105.1000152 Copyright: © 2013 Jacobs L, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. a During the apartheid years (1948–1993), all South Africans were classiied in accordance with the Population Registration Act of 1950 into ‘‘racial groups,’’ namely, ‘‘Black/African’’ (people mainly of African descent), ‘‘Colored’’ (people of mixed descent), ‘‘White’’ (people mainly of European descent), or ‘‘Indian’’ (people mainly of Indian descent). The provision of services occurred along these ‘‘racially’’ segregated lines. The disproportionate provision of services to different ‘‘race groups’’ led to inequities. Information is still collected along these ‘‘racial’’ divisions in order to redress these inequities. In no way does the author subscribe to this classiication.