Adverse childhood experiences are so prevalent today, that a quick search in the research database Academic Search Ultimate produced over 10 million peer-reviewed articles on the topic. The title of the article I chose is, “Childhood abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction and the risk of illicit drug use: The adverse childhood experience study. The authors of the article are Shanta R. Dube, Vincent J. Felitti, Maxia Dong, Daniel P. Chapman, Wayne H. Giles, and Robert F. Anda. The article was published by the American Academy of Pediatrics on March 1st, 2003.
The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study was conducted in Southern California between August of 1995 and October of 1997 by Kaiser Health, consisting of two survey waves that involved 26,824 people (Dube et al., 2003). The survey was administered as a self-reporting questionnaire related to childhood abuse, neglect, and family dysfunction which comprised the ACE scale (Dube et al., 2003) The scale is made up of adverse experiences that took place before the age of 18 and included abuse (physical, emotional, or sexual) or household dysfunction (parental divorce, crime, substance abuse, and mental illness), with each experience out of 10, adding to the scale by one (Dube et al., 2003). The study examined the association of each ACE and the beginning of illicit drug use for 3 age categories, 14 or younger, 15-18, and over 18 (Dube et al., 2003).
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According to the study there is a strong relationship between adverse childhood experiences and substance abuse or addiction later in life, with each ACE increasing the likelihood of substance use by two to four times in all three age categories (Dube et al., 2003). The correlation was strongest for individuals beginning to use drugs before the age of 14 and having multiple ACEs (Dube et al., 2003). When comparing individuals with 0 ACEs to people with 5 or more ACEs, individuals with 5 or more ACEs are 7 to 10 times more likely to have problems with substance use and addiction (Dube et al., 2003). Furthermore, individuals with 5+ ACEs are more likely to engage in that use in a riskier way (e.g. intravenous use), which as harmful consequences to overall public health (Dube et al., 2003). Lastly, there was a strong correlation between the ACE score and lifetime drug use (Dube et al., 2003).
According to the study, the result that the relationship was strongest for adolescents is not shocking; children who are exposed to these types of experiences have feelings of powerlessness and may use drugs as a means of avoiding pain (Dube et al., 2003). The biological impact on children who are exposed to ACEs can disturb early development, which can lead to problems later in life such as drug use (Dube et al., 2003). The influence of ACEs increasing the likelihood of illicit drug use is greater than the influence due to the availability of drugs or social attitudes towards using illicit drugs (Dube et al., 2003). Making progress on decreasing drug use will require attention to these types of experiences by medical professionals (Dube et al., 2003).
The findings of this article are evidence of my own life. Being a man in recovery, I decided to take the ACEs questionnaire and I scored a 5, which is in line with the findings of this study. I have always thought I started using drugs because of social influence and because I was just being a kid. I did not consider that my adverse childhood experiences could be responsible for my addiction. Reading this article and working at an addiction treatment center made me reflect on how we treat addiction. With ACEs being so prevalent more resources need to be applied to avoiding adverse childhood experiences as a way of treating addiction rather than waiting until an individual is already addicted.
When reading this article, I was surprised by how large the sample size was (26,824), but I was not surprised by the statistical increase that each ACE had on substance abuse (+2-4%). If you look at how prevalent addiction is across the world, the increase in likelihood of each ACE contributing to problems with addiction makes sense. After some self-analyzation on my childhood and my experience with addiction, after reading this article I now have no doubt that ACEs played a role in my addiction.
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