Yulawnda Patton
HN 144: Unit 9 Assignment
Kaplan University
LeRoy Karas was a young outgoing teenager who was the eldest of two boys. LeRoy had the physical ability and potential to become a football phenomenon. His parents favored him over his younger brother Elroy who was the complete opposite of LeRoy. Physically LeRoy was bigger than most of his peers and his athletic capabilities led him to be selected as an all-state linebacker during his senior year of high school. When LeRoy was 16 years old he began drinking almost a six- pack of beer a day, and by the time he turned 17 he began smoking. Even though LeRoy knew that drinking and smoking would get him kicked off the team he still continued this negative behavior. LeRoy wasn’t interested in studying just playing sports, drinking, smoking, and partying. Luckily LeRoy received a football scholarship and was able to attend college. He continued to excel in football but his bad habits continued and therefore his grades began to suffer. When LeRoy’s scholarship eligibility was used up he dropped out of college. He then married a college sophomore named Rachel who became pregnant and dropped out of college as well. Without finishing college LeRoy could only get jobs based on his skills and began job hopping. LeRoy continued his destructive behavior of drinking, smoking, and partying with his co-workers which led him now to become a poor husband. Leroy had now fathered three children with his wife and instead of making a change for the better he became verbally and physically abusive to his wife. After seven years of marriage LeRoy’s wife divorced him due to his verbal abuse, physical abuse, and alcoholism. LeRoy fathered an illegitimate child and a few years after that he married a woman named Jane. Jane and LeRoy had two children and were married for six years. Jane also divorced LeRoy due to his alcoholism and abuse. LeRoy now had a total of six children that he barely visited or supported and now had legal issues which derived from child support orders. LeRoy’s destructive behaviors kept him from holding down a good job therefore he had to work odd jobs in order to survive. On top off all these things LeRoy fell one day while drunk and fractured his skull causing him to have to stay in the hospital for 3 ½ months. LeRoy was then sent to a nursing home to be cared for because his accident had decreased his abilities to talk and walk. In the nursing home LeRoy could not drink or smoke and became very belligerent to the staff. LeRoy now had no friends or family to come and visit him and had now lost his will to live because of the things he had brought on himself.
According to my Ecomap of Leroy’s life his strongest influences were his parents, his college influences, and his drinking buddies. In my opinion LeRoy’s parents and his college coaches were his positive influences and major flow of energy/resources. It seems to me that after LeRoy began obsessively drinking and partying he didn’t care what his family and coaches had to offer him, he just wanted to party and drink not caring about the negative results that would follow. I think that his drinking buddies had a strong influence in his life but they were negative influences. Whenever LeRoy indulged in negative behavior he always had friends that indulged with him. In my opinion these friends influenced LeRoy’s behavior tremendously causing him to choose to drink with them instead of encouraging him to focus on school and taking care of his family. As a result of partying and drinking with his friends LeRoy lost his college scholarship, two wives, and his health was rapidly deteriorating.
LeRoy’s Ecomap changes as he transitions from middle adulthood to late adulthood in many ways in my opinion. According to Levinston’s life structure theory LeRoy entered into the fifth stage of life which starts between the age of 40 and 50 years old. During this stage Leroy tried to regain control of his life and remarry. His wife Jane was only 20 when they married and had two children with LeRoy. Once LeRoy entered into middle adulthood his wife Jane of six years divorced him because of his abusive behavior while under the influence of alcohol. Levinson’s theory suggests that many men experience some type of crisis at this point of their life. That’s exactly what had happened to LeRoy, a crisis. His second wife had left him and he was facing financial issues due to his inability to maintain a decent job. On top of these things LeRoy had legal troubles from child support and had gained an obsessive amount of weight. LeRoy never found stability throughout this stage of life and by the time he reached the late adult transition stage his health began to fail due to obsessive drinking and smoking. His admittance into a nursing home and lack of friends and family caused LeRoy to become very miserable. At this point all LeRoy wanted to do was die.
I have found that LeRoy’s environment and the people surrounding him really affected his behavior. Hanging out with friends that only wanted to drink and party may have made LeRoy feel that there was nothing wrong with his behavior. If I was working with LeRoy I would encourage him to change the type of people he associated with. I would also remind LeRoy of the type of person he used to be before drinking was involved. Some people think that all alcoholics want out of life is to drink and party but in my opinion LeRoy was trying to better himself but didn’t have any support.
In conclusion, I have learned by working with people similar to LeRoy that if they don’t change their negative behaviors their life will be turmoil. They will be unable to hold a steady job and maintain any type of healthy relationship. My attitude towards people such as LeRoy has changed due to the understanding that they want to change but just don’t know how. I no longer look at them as people who don’t want anything out of life because I see that they want a whole lot more but choosing to keep negative influences in their life hinders their progress.
References
Zastrow, Charles. Understanding Human Behavior and the Social Environment. 8th Edition. Cengage Learning, 2009. VitalBook file. Bookshelf. http://online.vitalsource.com/books/1111784116/page/448
National Organization for Human Service Education. (n.d.) Acronym Finder. (1988-2008). Retrieved June 19 2014 from http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/National+Organization+for+Human+Service+Education
