The saying no man is an island is fitting when it comes to substance abuse. When someone abuses drugs, the individual isn’t the only person affected. It creates a ripple effect, touching those around him or her, especially if the user is a parent.
Parents, who abuse opioids, put their children in physical, emotional and mental danger. These potentially harmful situations could impact children for the rest of their lives.
“If one person has the disease, the whole family is suffering,” Jim McClelland, Indiana’s executive director for Drug Prevention, Treatment and Enforcement, said. “The effect on children is often profound.”
Parents with substance abuse problems are more likely to have children who do the same. For example, adopted children who never met their birth parents — and those parents struggled with addiction — are four times more likely to develop a substance abuse disorder, said Dr. Tim Kelly, an addiction psychologist with Community Health Network.
Babies born to parents struggling with substance abuse also run the risk of developing neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), which is withdrawal from the drugs, most commonly opioids, they experienced in the womb.
“Here in the state of Indiana, we have babies that are born every 25 minutes that are suffering from opioid withdrawal,” Rob Hillman, president of Indiana’s Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, said.
Babies with NAS not only have a lower birth rate but can also develop feeding problems once they are born. According to Brooke Schaefer, a nurse practitioner who has worked with babies with NAS, the condition also increases the chances of developing ADD and other learning disabilities.
Growing up in a household with adults who abuse substances creates what experts call an adverse childhood experience, McClelland said. Other situations considered ACEs include abuse, death of a parent, divorce, and incarceration of a parent. The more ACEs a child experiences, the more likely he or she is to develop negative social and economic outcomes, including substance abuse problems.
“In Indiana last year more over 60 percent of all the children who removed from their homes by DCS, parental substance abuse was a factor,” McClelland said. “You got a lot of kids who are accumulating their ACE scores. The long-term effects can be devastating not only for the children but for society at large.”
The impact of opioid abuse on children can be so great that reconciliation is often one of the first steps of recovery. According to Tony Toomer, Indiana’s Opioid Treatment Program Manager, most people who seek treatment from opioids have strained relationships with their children and other family members.
“Once you start your recovery, that’s one of the things you have to do,” Toomer said. “Learn to rebuild those bridges and repair those relationships, whether it be with your children, your mother, your brother, your sister, your father, whoever that is.”
Contact staff writer Ben Lashar at 317-762-7848. Follow him on Twitter @BenjaminLashar.
