Counselor Magazine, the Magazine for Addiction Professionals - Opportunities Missed

SUBSCRIBER LOGIN

News Briefs

Continued Decline in Youth Substance Abuse

Current illicit drug use among teens is continuing to decline, according to a new report by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) released today. The study also shows positive signs that teens are seeing the dangers of abusing prescription drugs and methamphetamine and are pushing back. Among youth ages 12-17, the 2007 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), the Nation's largest substance use survey, shows that the significant decline in overall past month illicit drug use that began in 2002 continued through 2007, from 11.6 percent to 9.5 percent.

The survey, released at the start of the 19th Annual National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month, shows that the reductions in youth drug use occurred for nearly every type of illicit drug including marijuana, cocaine, hallucinogens, LSD, and Ecstasy. The survey also shows dramatic declines in meth use, down by 67 percent (from 0.3% to 0.1%) and prescription drug abuse among teens, which declined overall by 18 percent, from 4 percent to 3.3 percent between 2002-2007.

Polls

Can Recovering Drug Addicts Drink?

	Yes
	No
	I don't know

Special Offer

Opportunities Missed — Generation to Generation

Columns - Treatment

Written by Sis Wenger

Thursday, 05 June 2008

Her name is Alice and she is in my office because she wants to fix her marriage. She talks about the arguments with her husband over money, over the children, over too many things. What she doesn’t mention is the chronic emotional stress of her childhood. Throughout her childhood, she was plagued with the fear that her parents would divorce, that someone would get hit, that her friends would find out about her mother’s drinking and her father’s anger. She is so frightened now, because it is happening all over again — the same gut wrenching fear. Yet, she doesn’t mention her husband’s drinking.

There are so many issues, each exacerbating the other, each hurting her children emotionally, physically and spiritually. There were so many people who could have helped when she was a child but didn’t — her family doctor, her neighbors, her teachers, the school nurse, her faith community. She said nothing, and they said nothing, deepening her shame and isolation, which has followed into her adult life. Will her children get the gift of help that she never received, or will they inherit the pain she has never addressed and never lost?

As counselors, you often work with adults who have addictions, or who are married to someone who is addicted, or who had an alcoholic parent. Counselors provide therapy and resources to help individuals recover, but addiction is a family disease, and children and other family members need your help, too.

While it is critical for the counselor to help this client heal, who will help the children find their voice and break the debilitating silence that has trapped their family in generational pain? Who will help them find the support and strength they need to make healthy choices despite the chronic stress in their family? She is the client; the children aren’t … so, what is the counselor’s responsibility for seeing that their right to heal and recover is honored and served?

Why have we waited so long? Missed so many opportunities?

Scientific research indicates that parental alcoholism is linked to problems among children, such as difficulties in school or more serious problems such as psychological dysfunction. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACES) includes several reports that a child’s brain development and social and emotional growth is often dramatically compromised with the chronic emotional stress created by parental addiction. The whole family needs to recover from the very real pain of addiction’s onslaught, and that the rules that govern addicted families, articulated by Claudia Black — don’t talk, trust or feel — must be broken to stop intergenerational pain.

Children who grow up in households impacted by a family member’s dependence on alcohol or other drugs live in a world that doesn’t take care of them. They often suffer in silence, secrecy and shame. Why? Schools have cut back on student assistance programs and educational support groups, despite their effectiveness. Doctors’ offices and school clinics don’t ask about the role of alcohol or drug use in families. Addiction — the disease that devastates spiritual connection — is seldom acknowledged or discussed at faith services.

It is time to look beyond the adult client and ask who in the community can help facilitate recovery for the whole family, including the children.

Now is the time

For the community to take responsibility for supporting the one in four children who live with addiction in the family ... to acknowledge the problem and its damaging effects. An estimated 23 million Americans met the criteria for dependence to alcohol and/or drugs in 2006, yet only 2.3 million received treatment.
For clinicians to push for awareness of the pervasiveness of addiction and its debilitating long-term, powerful and cumulative effects on families and children, when they don’t receive the help they need.
For us to advocate for effective educational support programs for children of addicted parents; and recovery support programs for the whole family in treatment centers, schools, faith communities and drug courts.

There are effective educational support programs for children as young as preschool age to help children in addicted families. By the time they reach adulthood, children from addicted families are among the highest users of psychotropic drugs. The pain and mental health consequences that stem from addiction harm families for generations to come and escalate health care costs.

“Stressful and traumatic childhood and adolescent experiences literally alter … brain structure and function (as well as endocrine, immune and other biologic functions) thus leading to persistent effects. Until now, these persistent effects were ‘hidden’ from the view of both neuroscientists and public health researchers. This is no longer the case. In fact, with this information comes the responsibility to use it” (Anda, 2006).

When children of alcoholics get help while their parents are in treatment, there is more family cohesion and less relapse. When the whole family gets help, recovery happens sooner, and health costs are reduced for the addicted person and the family members; and children have a chance to tap into their own strengths and resilience. We know what to do — in our schools, our faith communities, the doctor’s office, and the treatment centers — and there are free program tools to help. So, why aren’t we doing it?

These are our children — our families. We have the program tools; what we need is the will. C
References

Anda, R. (2006). The Health and Social Impact of Growing Up With Alcohol Abuse and Related Adverse Childhood Experiences: The Human and Economic Costs of the Status Quo. NACoA Childrens Forum, Washington, D.C.