SUBSTANCE ABUSE

Substance Abuse

Introduction

Substance abuse is the result of a complex interplay of individual, family, peer, community and social factors, family environment plays a role in the promotion and protection of drug abuse and addiction(Vigna 2000). This section discusses some of these factors. Because of the limitations of research designs, many of these results are correlative and not causal.

Family relationships and practices of addiction

Although peer influences play an important role in explaining drug use among young people, family relationships and practices are also significant(Heegaard 2004). The level of influence, it seems, extends to the brothers and sisters. In a household study in Canada, the elder brother of drug use, more than the parent drug, has been the dominant influence of substance use among youth.

Family structure

Studies of the structure of the family around the world have shown that youth who live with both biological parents are significantly less likely to use substances, or to report problems with their use than those who do not live with both parents. Nevertheless, the family structure in itself does not appear to explain substance abuse(Sinberg Daley 2003). The characteristics of these family structures offer some clues. For example, boys who are in the care of their mothers and fathers are drug abusers are at increased risk of drug abuse, but this is due to genetic transmission of risk and lack of resources for effective parenting for single mothers.

A disruption in family life cycle seems to characterize these single-parent families. Unstable family environment (i.e., father absence, one or both parents who had emigrated, or death of parents) was associated with substance abuse among a national sample of young people in Greece. In addition, the deterioration in the family was stronger than that of the initiation of drug use among Hispanic / Latino immigrants than nonimmigrant to ...