My love child for the next few months

DRUG ADDICTION/YOUTH CULTURE IN BERLIN

How do young people in Berlin cope with addiction and alcoholism? Are the services provided comparable to those in the United States (specifically Seattle?) Are drug and alcohol use more acceptable, considering Germany’s proximity to places such as Amsterdam and the laxity of legal restrictions on drug use there, as well as the younger legal drinking age?

I plan to attend meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous while in Berlin in order to meet young people in recovery. After talking to the young people and conducting interviews and surveys, I hope to be able to speak also with people in active addiction. This can potentially happen on the street, or through observation in dance clubs or other social gatherings. Based on case studies of these people, I want to discover why they started using drugs and whether or not their drug and alcohol abuse resulted from the more liberal environment, peer pressure, family influences, etc. In exploring how drug addicted/alcoholic youth are experiencing recovery in Berlin, I will ultimately compare it to my own experiences of young people in addiction and recovery in the states.

These are the sites for both A.A. and N.A. in Berlin; meetings are every day of the week. Interestingly, there are more N.A. meetings than A.A. meetings, which is certainly not the case in Seattle. I don’t know if this is because there are more drug addicts than alcoholics, but it is something worth exploring.

http://alcoholics-anonymous-berlin.de/pages/meetings.php
http://www.na-berlin.de/meetings/eng_meetings.htm

The challenges that may present themselves while I am in Berlin are most predictably speaking with people in active addiction and I do not know if I will have the opportunity to do so. Even if I do end up meeting active alcoholics and drug addicts, an essential aspect of the disease is a lack of honesty and openness and I do not know if they will be willing to talk to me about their addiction; they may not even recognize that the addiction exists. In traveling to different places around the world and going to meetings, as well as being active in my personal recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction, I have found that people following a similar trajectory tend to open themselves in ways that are pretty profound. The challenge then lies in finding these people in meetings in Berlin; English-speaking meetings tend to be dominated by travelers or foreigners in residence in the country.


It would be wonderful if I could find a way to get in touch with this person. He seems to have direct experience with my research question and I am going to look for a way to contact him while I am in the city.

http://tsforum.event123.no/rme/Outreachwork/speakers2304.cfm

Mr. Stefan Schützler, Gangway e.V., Berlin, Germany
Reaching out for new target groups – experiences and perspectives of working with groups of adults in public spaces. What is common, what is different?

Biographical data:
Stefan Schützler has been a street worker in Berlin since 1992 where he worked in a social project for young homeless in Berlin Friedrichshain for two years.. From 1994 he worked for five years as social street worker for Gangway e.V. in Hohenschönhausen, primarily targeting groups of youngsters who used to meet on or in shopping malls. Since 2000 he has been working in the district of Treptow-Köpenick in South of Berlin, where the main issues of his clients are violence, criminality, unemployment and political radicalism.


This is a historical account of youth drug use in Berlin in the 1960’s and 1970’s…always good to know how/where/when/ and why things got started.

historyofalcoholanddrugs.typepad.com/SHADv20n2Weinhauer.pdf

This is a great Q & A on street children in Berlin and is more recent than the previously mentioned study.

www.childcentre.info/projects/street_children/germany/dbaFile11445.doc