Substance Use Disorders ( Suds ) - 2100 Words

Introduction There were more than 8.3 million children who lived with a parent or parents who actively abused or were dependent on an illegal drug or alcohol in 2008 (SAMSHA, 2009). Over the years comprehensive research has been accomplished and has determined that children raised by substance using parents are at an increased risk for developing substance use disorders (SUDs) in adulthood as a result of familial dissemination of substance abuse through both the environments in which the children are raised and genetic susceptibility (Merikangas et al., 1998; Merikangas Avenevoli, 2000). However, there is an insignificant amount of literature examining the effects that the combined treatment and recovery of substance abusing parents has†¦show more content†¦Research indicates that children exposed to parental substance use are at increased risk for exposure to trauma and neglect (Kandel, 1990), linking with an increased risk for later developing SUDs (Mills, Teesson, Ross, Peters, 2006 as cited in Khoury et al., 2010). Yet, as previously stated there is little research to show the modifying affects that treatment and recovery can have on the children of substance abusers. The perspective of the dilemma of SUDs is that it not only affects the user, but it also their family and all those exposed to them. It is not an individual problem, it is a societal problem. As the previously discussed statistics shows, substance abuse is a substantial issue in our society. Although, alcohol and numerous substances have been around and ingested in various ways throughout history, it is a fairly new epidemic. It was not until the mid-nineteenth century that we began to see new ways to use these substances, and different means to extract properties of such substances. It was in the mid-nineteenth century that morphine and codeine were first extracted from the opium poppy, cocaine was identified by chemists as the psychoactive substance of the coca leaf, and the hypodermic needle was invented. It was not until the purifications and new found transmissions of such substances that we began to experience such increased risk (DuPont, 1997). The House of Representatives of the United States