When I grew up I knew many people (friends) who were on the lower echelon of society. People with little to no jobs not because they were lazy but illiterate in some cases, unskilled, uneducated. Drinking was the thing that held people together in many ways, the pub was the center of friends, family and life. The biggest thing to remember is they are many good people, just ones without the chances or the skills/motivation to climb out of the rung they are on.
Lots of love albeit often rough and tumble love, not many coping skills so the bottle was turned to during times of stress which didn't help things but its what they knew. It is easy to say that one would be searching or doing something else but if you fall apart then how do you cope? If you haven't learned the skills, if you can't trust LE, if you manage just to put food on the table for the kids but not anything more, how do you cope during a crisis?
We (most of us) have all sorts of tools for coping and strategizing, if we don't have it we know its there somewhere if we ask for help. That in itself is a learned skill, to ask for help and trust it will be forthcoming. But there is a whole subset of people with addictions, within grinding poverty, with low self esteem, who are desperately trying their best to raise families but are over their heads and when something happens retreat to what they know best to dull the fear and the pain and the stress. I don't judge them as bad people or parents, just ones who don't have the advantages I have had to even know how life can be different
Thank you Silky, it's really helpful to hear a different side of it. Sounds like all of this would explain how these things come about. It is sad that people get trapped in these cycles that they cannot get out of. I think I'm going to have a day off from reading about the case tomorrow, it kind of brings you down immersing yourself in a case like this.