How Family History Contributes to Opioid Addiction

What are the common components of family history contributing to the recycling of relapses and spreading the addiction epidemic within the family?

One frequent pattern associated with opioid addiction within the family appears to involve unemployment, trailed by the decay of the family structure (1).

During the past several decades, there has been a continuous shift of American factories to foreign countries, resulting in job losses in traditional small-town and rural environments, including agriculture, factory, and small-town jobs.

This process resulted in a stepwise impoverishment and fracturing of multigenerational families.

Isolated, lonely young families—often with small children—lose family traditions and a sense of continuity, as well as the critical support of the older generation, including parents and grandparents.

Loss of jobs and long-term unemployment in a family with traditions of self-reliance and independence takes away the individual’s dignity, ruining family stability and creating a fertile environment for addiction, which has been enhanced during the Coronavirus epidemic. References: 1. Henkel D. Unemployment and substance use: a review of the literature (1990-2010). Curr Drug Abuse Rev. 2011 Mar;4(1):4-27. -Dr. Bogdan Nowicki