ipl-logo

Violence In A Long Way Gone

1208 Words5 Pages

There are about 250,000 child soldiers today. In A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah we read about his personal experience as a child soldier. In this book we see the start of the civil war in Sierra Leone before he was a soldier but as the war spreads he becomes a soldier as he didn't have another option. We see him go through loss of family and friends, brainwashing, violence, drug addiction, withdrawal and PTSD. He goes through recovery and gets better through hard work and the help of others. In this essay I will be discussing violence and how it affected him, drug addiction and storytelling. I personally believe revenge is okay to seek and its human nature but there are some limits. Taking revenge in a way that harms the other person in a …show more content…

A drug addiction occurs when someone uses substances to give themselves a feeling of pleasure even if it has negative consequences for them or others.When an addiction occurs the brain changes too making it extremely difficult to quit. This is because the brain wants more of the pleasurable substance because it’s giving dopamine. Once someone is addicted to something all they want is that thing and they will do anything to get it. This is a social issue because not only does it affect the individual it affects everyone. These addictions can lead to overdoses which is a huge cause of preventable deaths. It also affects many families and can lead to homelessness and food insecurity. There is also a lot of money used to arrest these people when instead they could have been sent to something like rehab. Since someone with an addiction will do that substance as much as possible this leads to unsafe conditions for them and others like driving under the influence. Drug addiction affects society as a …show more content…

These drugs were given to manipulate and brainwash the soldiers into fighting. Once he was addicted to the drugs he would do anything to get more and this also kept him from feeling pain while fighting. During rehabilitation the child soldiers would experience very intense withdrawals from these substances. He says “I cringed and rolled around on the floor by my bed or sometimes on the verandah. No one paid attention, as everyone was busy going through their own withdrawal stages in different ways”(Beah, 140). Many of the boys go through insufferable symptoms of withdrawal and because of this they would harm themselves or others. This made recovery very difficult for him for the start of

Open Document