As reported at BlackVoices, Gucci Mane was arrested yet again. Earlier this year, Mane promised to do better and address his personal conflicts, which include drug abuse, but here he is headed back to the slammer.

T.I., who recently finished serving prison time for a weapons charge, was recently re-arrested for having illegal substances in his car and testing positive for opiates -- all a no-no for the terms of his probation.

And the troubled rapper and actor DMX appears to have bought time-shares in prison, given how often he has been arrested and jailed.

So what the heck is going on with these rappers?

Is it that they like the prison food and accommodations? Do they feel more comfortable in jail than out in society?

Many critics believe that it is because these rappers were once street thugs who now just happen to be rich thugs. They point out the violent street wars that claimed the lives of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls and point to rap lyrics that often speak to a violent subculture.

Think about it, if nothing else, violence and rap is often viewed as being as natural as peanut butter and jelly. It is a guilt by association that may even subconsciously encourage violent and illegal behaviors that often land these rappers in jail time and again.

On August 30, 2010, the world was shocked when Bethany Storro (pictured), a pretty 28-year-old Vancouver woman, allegedly became the victim of a random and violent attack in which she claimed a stranger threw acid in her face, leaving her burned and scarred. It also seemed that it may have been a bias crime in that Storro described her assailant as a black woman in her late 20s to early 30s, with slicked-back hair in a pony tail. According to Storro, the attacker was wearing a green shirt and khaki shorts and had three piercings in her ear. Storro even provided enough details of this mysterious black woman so that a composite sketch could be generated to aid in her capture.

Here Alonzo continues to discuss his experience and how he finally broke his addiction:

Last time, I discussed depression and its effects on the black community. This time my panel and I discuss how and why drug and alcohol abuse continues to be a major blight on the black community.

According to statistics by John Hopkins University School of Medicine:

• African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans and Alaskan Natives have higher death rates for cirrhosis of the liver relative to the total population.
• Alcohol mortality rates are highest for African American men, even though alcohol use tends to be more moderate for African Americans than for whites or Hispanics.
• African Americans are more likely to report using illegal drugs on a weekly basis than any other ethnic group.

But you don't need national statistics to know that drugs and alcohol are disproportionately present in black communities.

All you need to do is go to some of the low-end or discount liquor stores to see the disheveled and bruised alcoholics congregating outside before it opens.

Or take a walk in a poor black neighborhood, where the addicts are standing on the corner doing the heroine nod, while right across the street, female junkies are selling their bodies to support their drug habits.

There are many reasons why black men and women use drugs and why it continues to be a major problem in the black community. The top reasons are:

• Poverty and Racism - The psychological pressure and stress from day-to-day poverty and racism results in depression, anxiety and rage. Drugs and alcohol offer an inappropriate self-medication of black pain.
• Lack of Opportunities - Poverty and racism also offer fewer avenues for enlightenment, education, employment, success and achievement. Even worse, this lack of opportunity causes a frustration and anger that is soothed through drug abuse.
• Economics - Yes, of course the pain of poverty will result in self-medication with drugs, but also the dealing of drugs is quite lucrative and requires no academic degree.
• Abuse and Incest - Statistics show that an overwhelming number of incarcerated men and women have been subjected to some physical or emotional abuse as children. This abuse also contributes to chemical abuse or addictions.

In my own practice, I have discovered that nine out of 10 of my female patients started using drugs as a way to subdue the pain or even try to bury the memories of the horrible sexual abuse and incest they experienced at the hands of family members. Much of this abuse happened, by the way, when their fathers, cousins, uncles and so on were high on drugs or alcohol.

When you live in a family and community where chemical abuse is rampant and its use has been normalized by the sheer numbers of users, it becomes very easy to start or continue in one's addiction. In other words, you are just fitting in with the crowd.

Another point to know is that it is a scientific principle that alcoholism runs in families. This can happen through a passing down of genes or by watching parents who are alcoholics and or addicts act as poor role models. Thus, children in chemical-abusing families are more at risk of experimenting and later becoming addicted to drugs and alcohol.

Below and here one of my patients, Alonzo H., discuss what his life was like being addicted to alcohol and drugs:

Alonzo H., one of my patients, discusses his bout with drugs and alcohol:

As we know by now, Omar Thornton, a disgruntled worker at a beer distributorship in Connecticut, was fired for stealing beer and reselling it. His response: pulling out two guns and shooting his co-workers.

By the time he was done, eight were killed and several were injured. After speaking by phone to his mother and the police, he then committed suicide by turning the gun on himself.

In the wake of this tragedy, ugly allegations have surfaced, mostly from his girlfriend Kristi Hannah, that Thornton was the target of vicious and continuous racial harassment at the company. She claims that he was exposed to unfair race-based treatment, the frequent use of the N-word and a drawing of a noose on a bathroom wall.

Hannah believes that these situations caused him to lose his mind and eventually propelled him toward a "revenge killing spree!"

In our depression series, we began with the sad story of Gary Coleman and what happens when depression goes untreated in our community.

The next segment of our series went on to tackle why we, as African American, don't get help.

In this final installment, we will explore the general symptoms of depression and how they are manifested specifically in African Americans. In addition, I address the importance of breaking through the stigma that allows depression to go untreated in our lives.

Related Articles: Gary Coleman and Untreated Depression in the Black Community

Last time, we discussed depression in the black community, with Gary Coleman acting as our poster boy for what not to do when you are suffering from depression. In keeping with our theme, I now discuss the many reasons black folks don't get diagnosed and certainly do not get treated.

Related Stories: Part 1: 'Gary Coleman and Untreated Depression in the Black Community'

Acclaimed author and expert Dr. Alvin Poussaint believes there is too big of a stigma associated with depression in the black community. Poussaint states that more than 60 percent of black individuals don't see depression as a mental illness, while the Black Caucus Foundation has further cited that 63 percent of African Americans view depression as a "personal weakness." The result is that we do not seek help.

Terrie Williams is a high-powered publicist who has represented some of the most famous black celebrities in the world, including Eddie Murphy and Janet Jackson. She is also the author of 'Black Pain: It Just Looks Like We're Not Hurting,' in which she not only chronicles her own ongoing battle with depression, but also, through her Stay Strong Foundation, travels the world encouraging black folks to recognize and talk about how mental illness has affected their lives.

Williams believes that the issue is not just about the stigma of admitting to a mental health problem or depression (better known as the "I'm not crazy; I don't need no psychiatrist" syndrome), but that it goes even deeper. She refers to the "mask" as the major culprit of self-denial for depression:

"The mask is what we feel that we need to get through our everyday lives. It's the mask that says that I'm fine, that I am confident, that I'm accomplished. You may need the mask to maintain the competitive edge, but at the end of the day, you feel awful and you still feel the pain of your untreated depression."

Watch her discuss the mask here: