Motherhood: Addicted Mothers

Gruber, K.J., & Taylor M.F. (2006). A family perspective for substance abuse: Implications from the literature. Journal of Social

Growing up with substance abuse parents can potentially put the children at risk for developmental deficiencies. Parents who are substance dependent are oftentimes focus on themselves over their children, and this leads to neglecting the children. Without the attachment with the parents, children are lack of security and trust to explore the outside world. According to Erik Erikson, children develop at different stage. Infants are totally dependent on their parents. If parents provide the good care and support to the children, they will develop the basic trust to their parents and the world, otherwise, they will feel insecure and develop mistrust instead. This mistrust may cause problems later in life. As children begin to grow and navigate the challenges of adolescence, parental substance abuse has a direct impact on their well-being, as well as their behavior. Teenagers are eager to seek their identities. Yet, growing up with mistrust, inferiority, and shame

Although all sorts of families can be devastated by addiction, but single parent units (the most common lower class structure) are the most obscured. Behavioral Health of the Palm Beaches supports, “In every family unit, each person plays a role (or multiple roles) to help the family function better and to maintain a level of homeostasis, stability and balance. When substance abuse is added to this dynamic, the family roles naturally shift to adjust to the new behaviors associated with drug or alcohol use, and to continue maintaining order and balance.”4 In single parent units there is an inability of a second parent to fill the void role of the addicted parent. The National Center for Biotechnology Information states, “Frequently, children may act as surrogate spouses for the parent who abuses substances. For example, [young] children may develop elaborate systems of denial to protect themselves against that reality of the parent’s addiction. Because that option does not exist in a single‐parent household with a parent who abuses substances, children are likely to behave in a manner that is not age‐appropriate to compensate for the parental deficiency.”2 So a child growing up in a compromised family unit where addiction is present may develop altered norms and mature into an addict themselves.4

Nic’s addiction had a severe impact on the Sheff family. The family dynamic changed due to the separation of Nic’s parents, which was emotionally stressful for Nic and maybe contributing factor towards Nic’s start to addiction. It is shown that “changes in any part of [a family] system affects the entire system. When life-altering changes occur, such as a family member leaving or divorce, the changes reverberate throughout the system” (Steenrod, 2014). Even though the divorce occurred within the parental subsystem and before Nic’s drug addiction began, the change still affected him and the stress of the change perpetuated through his adolescence. Usually, the father-son subsystem is examined with the father being the one who has the addiction, but in Nic’s circumstance the roles are reversed. “Individuals who are drug-impaired may be

However, one review article mentioned there is little actually known about the details of opioid abusing mother behavior other than more negative than positive behavior engagement. The lack of detail regarding deficits in parenting among dependent mothers suggests a need for future research in order to tailor and better recruit for interventions and education to mothers and see better results. Additionally, it has not been established that simply treating mothers for their opioid addiction would be sufficient for improving child outcomes, which illuminates the need for parenting education to mothers, especially those who are opioid dependent and have a much higher chance of mental health problems and lack of social support as studies have shown (Peisch et al.,

This research consisted of key informants and general informants. These general informants were leaders in the community, granny midwives and African American and European American health care professionals. These general informants came from the clinics and hospitals where key informants were from. The key informants from each region were women who were either pregnant or had a baby within in a year preceding the study. (Marjorie Morgan, 1996)

Surratt in the article, “Gender-Specific Issues in the Treatment of Drug-Involved Women” talks about how women biologically react to drug different and how they often connect treatment recovery and motherhood together (Surratt, p. 349). Surratt suggests that women become addicted to drug much more quickly than men (Surratt, p. 349). However, most treatment does no not focus on women’s recover and the unique forms of treatment they may need for recovery (Surratt, p. 350). Often women feel more guilt than men when battling drug addiction because women are more harshly judged for drug use, especially when she is pregnant or has children (Surratt, p. 351). Surratt looks at the treatment program at Florida State called “The Village”, which has treatment program called Families in Transition for mothers battling addiction and their children under the age of 12 years old (Surratt, p. 352). This allows for the children to live with their mothers while they are receiving treatment (Surratt, p. 352). The author held interviews with some women in the program and almost all attributed treatment with becoming a good mother for their children (Surratt, p. 353). Many of the women who were battling with addiction had family members who were addicts or had some form of childhood or domestic abuse (Surratt, p. 355). Treatment for these women needs to be more complex than your typical user because they have many layers of issues to over come. This program did not include the

At times, the community is unsafe and damaging to the child’s development with current research, they are finding that environmental factors with a high crime rate, poverty, acts of violence and high drug distribution are top contributors that can lead to abuse. This can result in depression, substance abuse and social isolation from the parent and are seen more likely to experience abuse or maltreatment. Although abuse in itself is contributing factor, the likely hood increases with age. During the interview Kaleb discussed how substance abuse in itself can be a leading factor on its own. From his statistics, from the Child Welfare League of America about 40 to 80 percent of families affected by substance abuse. Which as a result of issues of substance abuse the child is more at risk of sexual abuse from the caregivers. Substance abuse often creates a domino effect for the child later in life, such as young pregnancy, problems in school, incarcerated in as a juvenile and the inability to cope with the trauma they experienced. He also stated that substance abusers are the most difficult to treat since many adults do not want to seek proper treatment and more likely to have their child permanently removed to long care foster

The purpose of proposing a substance abuse treatment group was to break the barriers that mother-child relationships may face in result to maternal addiction and substance-abuse. Treatment that is geared for maternal addicted mothers can help them recover quickly and protect their infant children from the dangers of drugs and health consequences. The program will be gender specific, distinctively for substance-dependent women who are mothers. The group will conduct its work by following through a four step recovery process with professionals who will help facilitate the treatment. There will be Licensed Clinical Social Workers, welfare social workers, treatment clinicians, counselors, addiction treatment nurses, and lead administers and staff.

In this response to the case study Mother with Addiction, I will analyze the social worker’s style of counseling by examining his goal that he set for a mother of two who is addicted to drugs and was having sex for drugs. I will scrutinize the goal for enhancement of the morality of the client by using the code of ethics to identify the ethical issues involved in the case study. I will discuss my understanding of what the role of a social worker entitles. I will identify the issues I find wrong with the intervention and offer alternative interventions using the Person-Centered approach. Then, I will break down how Carl Roger’s Personality Theory demonstrates where the client is.

Understanding personally that parents are consciously aware of the horrors of drug addiction; with determination and an education about the problems they’re facing parents can and will make a difference in their child’s life. The necessity for incarceration for drug addict can be a necessary step in the recovery process. At some point the addict must realize that his/her perception of control is flawed, and their ability to make rational judgements for

The purpose of this paper is to explore children affected by maternal substance abuse, the Community Health Nurses roles in assisting these families, and propose best practice interventions for this high-risk population.

These materials were chosen, because it is best used with adults and teens who engage in substance abuse. All questions can help determine if a teen has engaged in substance abuse, because of a parent in the home. According to Peter (2015), this assessment was conducted study to investigate and analyze substance abuse among family

Participants were noted to have been exposed to multiple substances as well as varying degrees of substance use, abuse and dependency. This frames substance usage as a very real and ever present reality of participants lived experiences. However participants were found to have multiple questions and concerns surrounding substance usage. For instance, as noted above, participant views surrounding 'why an individual would use a substance' were found to be connected by the notion of 'abnormality'. They suggested that individuals sought ought substance use as a means to escape the negative realities of their own lives, or due to their genetics/biology predisposing them to use, or even due to neurological concerns. This positions substance

When looking at parental addiction to alcohol, Sharon Wegcheider-Cruse developed a concept of certain behavioral roles that children of alcoholics take on in order to cope with the addiction issues of the parent which can often lead to emotional harm. Wegcheider-Cruse separates the behavioral roles into four distinct categories each with a different name comprising a hero, a scapegoat, a lost child, and a mascot. When a child takes on a “hero” behavioral role, they are often referred to as the “model child” and are known to take over the family responsibilities which the parents are not addressing. Although there are many positives to a young child taking on this role in the family, including becoming independent, being responsible, and often over achieving, there are many negative impacts made on the child’s emotional state and behavior as well. These negatives consist of having a fear of rejection, having feelings of low self worth, striving for perfection, ignoring