As drug overdose deaths have risen sharply in recent years, a pattern has emerged: Reflecting the historic losses felt by inner city families, increasingly families in the suburbs are enduring a wave of drug deaths, as well.
According to prior research described in a study published in May in the journal Development and Psychopathology, “Large suburban metro counties went from having the lowest to the highest rate of premature death due to drug overdose within the past decade. Premature death due to drug overdose was highest among whites.” The May study set out to evaluate drug and alcohol misuse and addiction through early adulthood among individuals who went to high school in upper middle-class communities.
While higher income and education is often associated with better overall health, studies have found that kids living in affluent communities binge drink and smoke marijuana at higher rates than their peers in general. Studies show lower income individuals smoke cigarettes and use other drugs like heroin at higher rates. But the research in Development and Psychopathology found that those from the New England Study of Suburban Youth who were followed as young adults were not only more likely to drink to intoxication and use marijuana, but their use of stimulants such as Adderall and cocaine and club drugs like ecstasy were also higher relative to national norms. The study focused on two groups of students in affluent communities in the Northeast; students in one group were assessed through their college years, and in the other from ages 23 to 27.
[See: 7 Health Risks of Binge Drinking You Can’t Ignore.]
Rates of addiction among the older group of men and women were two and three times higher, respectively, than national norms. In the younger group, by the age of 22 years, rates of addiction to drugs or alcohol among women were between 11 and 16 percent close to national norms; but the rates of addiction were 19 to 27 percent among men — about twice as high as national norms, notes Suniya Luthar, a professor of psychology at Arizona State University and a professor emerita at Columbia University’s Teachers College in New York City, who led the research.
More study is needed to determine if and how the findings might apply in a broader context, including to adolescents and young adults elsewhere in the U.S. But experts say the research clearly indicates that parents shouldn’t just shrug off their kids’ alcohol or drug use as something they’ll leave behind when they get older. “This is certainly not something to be dismissed lightly and trivialized as, ‘Oh, they will outgrow it,'” Luthar says.
She emphasizes that there may be lots of reasons substance use rates were higher among the high school students she and fellow researchers followed in adulthood. Though a high proportion of students at the schools were from affluent families, not all were. Luthar points out that numerous factors may have figured into higher rates of drug and alcohol use, including the pressure to perform at schools with very high standardized test scores (where most kids’ parents were highly educated, and the kids were vying to get into selective universities), and an accompanying “work hard, play hard” mentality. That was coupled with broad peer acceptance of drinking and using drugs, whether to blow off steam and party, or self-medicate; and the fact that with money, it’s often easier to access drugs and alcohol.
There is one major factor, however, that experts say consistently reduces substance use among kids and adolescents and sets them on a course to use less as adults: parental involvement.
A major reason kids in affluent families are more likely to drink and use drugs like marijuana is because frequently parents aren’t as involved, says Constance Scharff, an addiction researcher with Cliffside Malibu Treatment Center in Malibu, California, and co-author of “Ending Addiction for Good.” “It takes a lot of effort to earn a lot of money,” Scharff says, adding that often parents aren’t home as much. “They’re not necessarily tuned in to what kids are doing.”
In that way, kids of the lowest and highest earners frequently face a similar challenge: “Very poor people and very wealthy often have the same problems,” Scharff says, in regards to frequently diminished parental involvement. For low-income individuals, having to work long hours to make ends meet can take them away from their families. Scharff qualifies that these are general trends and that, of course, every family is different: Some high earners are very involved, while some middle income parents are less so.
But given the trends, she’s concerned about what a shrinking middle class could mean for reducing parental involvement. “I think you see that in the opioid [use] trend overall with young people,” she says. Scharff points out that many kids already have easy access to powerful prescription painkillers — prescribed for everything from sports-related surgeries to dental procedures — and less oversight means it’s that much easier for them to take pills right from the medicine cabinet, or that they get from friends.
[See: 4 Opioid Drugs Parents Should Have on Their Radar.]
When a Child Starts Using
The earlier kids start drinking alcohol or using drugs, the more likely they are to develop a habit. “The brain is very susceptible at a young age,” says Dr. Charles O’Brien, a professor of psychiatry at Perelman School of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania, and founder of the university’s Charles O’Brien Center for Addiction Treatment. That’s why it’s so hard, for example, for teenage smokers to quit, he says. “Younger initiation of drug use is a bad sign for the future.”
By contrast, when parents do get involved, they can prevent problems down the road. In the research published in May, more stringent repercussions for substance use at age 18 were associated with less frequent drunkenness and marijuana and stimulant use in adulthood.
But it’s important for parents to be strategic. That includes modeling responsible behavior, expert say, and ditching the mentality that if you did it when you were a kid it must be OK for your child.
The researchers wrote that the study’s findings highlight the need for upper middle-class parents to revisit laissez-faire attitudes toward their high school kids’ substance use, with caveats. “The repercussions meted out should be consequential, but at the same time, (a) are not draconian, (b) are mutually agreed upon (for “repeat offenses”), and (c) are consistently enforced, within the context of a supportive parent-child relationship,” they note. Overly severe punishments in the absence of support and nurturance will inevitably backfire.” In addition to setting limits, the researchers say parents should discuss these issues long before kids enter high school and spell out the risks associated with substance use, noting that a single poor choice can have life-altering consequences.
[See: 10 Concerns Parents Have About Their Kids’ Health.]
“The key thing that I say to parents is to be tuned in and to make sure there are consequences for the behavior that you don’t want,” Scharff says. “Unless there’s a very broken relationship, kids really do value what their parents think, and they want their parents to be proud of them.”
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Is Growing Up With Money a Risk Factor for Drug and Alcohol Addiction? originally appeared on usnews.com
