Childhood Trauma and Adult Addiction: The Unfortunate Link

Childhood trauma is a key factor in determining whether a person will be more susceptible to addiction later on in life.

We all know there’s more to addiction than drugs alone. Many factors are at play to cause a person to be dependent on substances such as drugs or alcohol. One of these factors is childhood trauma and stress.

Many studies have already proven that a calm and nurturing childhood orients a person to thrive in most situations as they grow up. Meanwhile, a stressful and chaotic environment will predispose one to anxiety and unpredictability–a factor that helps predict if someone can more easily lose control after using drugs compared to others.

Childhood Trauma and Addiction

There is, in fact, a study that supports the idea that the more stressful a child’s early life experiences are, the greater the odd for later life addiction. The stresses include emotional, physical violence, sexual abuse, neglect, divorced parents, parents with addiction or mental illness, death of a parent, witnessing domestic violence in the home, or having a parent in prison. Collectively, these are called Adverse Childhood Experiences.

The more of these ACEs a child has, the higher the chance that they will be a smoker as an adult, or become obese or an alcoholic. In the study, a boy with four or more of these ACEs are 46 times more likely to shoot drugs later on in life compared to someone who has no major ACE.

However, it’s not the end if a child or someone you know have went through such ACEs. We have previously blogged about risk and protective factors that can help children veer away from addiction later on in life.

There are factors that cause resilience in children that also work on addiction recovery. One of this is support. Providing a supportive, loving, and positive environment to your loved one who is recovering from addiction can greatly contribute to the success of their recovery.

In short, if we want to prevent addiction at any point in life and promote life-long recovery, we just need to love and care more, and stress less.

Is your loved one suffering from addiction? Call or text us at 09175098826 (Manila) or 09177046659 (Cebu).