Addiction (Y Jia, A Kim, L Lager, S Stringham

Introduction

Addiction is a mental disease where someone is having a physical or psychological dependence on a substance or a behavior. This usually comes at the expense of themselves and the people around them. According to the National Survey on Drug use and Health 19.7 million people in the United States over the age of 12 suffered from a substance use disorder. [1] With this understanding, the goal of our project is to identify four key sub-issues of addiction that’s specific to alcohol and drugs: Environmental Factors, Age, Mental Health Issues, and Family History.

Environmental Factors

Environmental factors can mean a wide variety of factors. Some specific factors that were investigated are peer pressure and social media influence. This section was restricted to the United States and has a big effect on adolescents/young adults.

In a study done at the university of North Carolina, there was an experiment done on random college students to test the effects of peer pressure on development of binge drinking. The study found that having a drinking peer increased the episodes of binge drinking in a month by .5- 1 episodes per month. This was only significant for people with a medium propensity for drinking and not those with low or high propensities. [2]

National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University did a study that showed the correlation between social media use and substance abuse. The survey included responses from 2000 adolescent, the results showed that 70% of the 2000 surveyed are daily users of social media [3], and this number continues to grow. [4] (Figure 1). This group had a positive correlation with increased substance abuse. Researchers even showed that the biggest reason for using Facebook was that it established social norms. [5] This means that there is a great deal of influence presented by social media. (Figure 2).

In the United States, there is a campaign by many organizations to prevent peer pressure from drinking and substance abuse. We see all sorts of different websites and organizations giving out helpful advice on avoiding peer pressure. [6] There are also many barriers due to many environmental factors. Research mostly focuses on people afflicted with substance abuse as the biggest barrier to receiving help. However; resources, income, and availability of professionals also takes a toll. In many areas of the country, people afflicted with substance abuse can’t afford to seek professional help or there isn’t a facility close enough for the patient to seek. A big reason for lack of facilities is a lack of funding from the government. Also, researchers concluded that the minimal pay, high stress, long hours of work are barriers for many people aspiring to become counselors. [7]

Professional Opinion: There are many different variables that comes to play when examining this subtopic, we choose to focus on social media and peer pressure because that also has a correlation with our subtopic, age. There needs to be stricter regulations on social media platforms to promote safe habits. Some methods can be screening posts for adolescent users and people susceptible to drugs and alcohol. As for peer pressure we can only give out more education about the dangers of substance abuse. - Y. Jia

Addiction Sub-Issues

Age

A group of students were surveyed in New Zealand because they had no prior history of ill conduct. It showed no signs that early exposure of drugs influenced their ability to finish school. However, these students were more likely to develop substance issues, test positive for herpes, early pregnancy, and become involved in criminal activity. This shows that adolescents who use these substances are at greater risk than adolescents have don’t use these substances. [8]

From a scientific perspective, the Pre-Frontal Cortex has not been fully developed in adolescent brains. This leads to less cortical inhibition, which is associated with problem solving in adults. Adolescents are also more susceptible to reward based decision making, this can refer to drug use and the positive feeling associated with it. [9]

This is a huge issue for everyone; because, many people drink under the legal age of drinking. In some countries the legal drinking age is as low as 15, like Ethiopia. [10] Data has shown that people using substances and alcohol have much higher levels of dependence around the ages of below 18, than above 18. (Figure 3).

The government has implemented programs at multiple levels to try and build a sense of community to help at risk kids. Caring School Community is an example of this in schools that teach kindergarten to 6 th grade. [2]

Professional Opinion: The younger the user of a substance the more likely he’ll become addicted. There are talks about increasing the drinking age and that could be a solution, but adolescents still find ways to circumvent the law regarding abusive substances and alcohol. We can all do more as a society by being more vigilant and given out

better education to adolescents.

-S. Stringham

Figure 3

Mental Health Issues

Data shows that there are high rates of mental disorders with the cooccurring use of addictive substances. [11] Some examples of these mental disorders are ADHD, depression, Schizophrenia. The below chart shows that people with Serious Mental Illness (SMI) are much more likely to use drugs then people with Substance Use Disorder (SUD). (Figure 4). This issue can also be related back to age: age group 10-19 is shown to be more susceptible to drug addiction of all age groups afflicted with mental health issues. This means it’s important to seek out adolescents who might be afflicted with a mental health issue. [12]

This issue can be perceived as a global issue because mental illnesses aren’t only perceived in one area of the world. Some countries have higher rates of mental illness than other countries. How countries deal with this problem can depend on a countries resources and ability to handle mental health patients and the laws surrounding this area.

It’s hard to give a definite solution for this problem because of how many variables are involved. The only way to really help someone struggling with the cooccurrence of using substances and having mental health is recognize the signs. Seek help from medical professionals is the best way to help someone who is self-medicating.

Professional Opinion: Many people choose to self-medicate because of mental illness. This is a dangerous path to cross because most people who are addicted to dangerous substances or alcohol have some form of mental illness. This means that we need to be educated on the signs of mental illness and help them seek proper help so that they don’t self-medicate. The first step in stopping this issue is recognizing that someone is mentally ill, we can all be a part of the solution in addressing Mental Health Issues. -A. Kim

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4432862/

Figure 1

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878929316301931 https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/common-comorbidities-substance-use-disorders/introduction

Family History

A study shows a positive correlation between having addction when there is a history of addiction within the family. The data provides an example of this by exhibiting that if a person has a firstdegree, alcohol dependent relative, there is a 5-fold increase in the risk for developing alcohol depending. [13] Along with getting the addiction, there is data showing the association between family history and delay discounting for an addiction (Figure 5). Within the study, it is shown that there is a significantly higher rate of delay discounting for those who have two parents with an addiction compared to those with one parent or no parents with addiction. [14]

This issue can be shown as a global issue as for anyone, anywhere in the world may have some form of addiction in which the genetic factors that play into this may be passed down to their offspring. The people affected the most would be younger generations due to older generations having less education on the severity of addiction.

Over the past century, more and more restrictions and education have come about regarding the severity of addiction as well as on how to better lower the risk for addiction. Continuing this education to younger generations while enforcing rules and regulations on addictive substances to have a domino effect on future generations could best help lower the statistics of family history being a risk factor for addiction.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3715786/

Figure 2

Professional Opinion: Because family history can lead to a significant increase in the risk for addiction, I believe the best thing would be to provide education for younger generations so they can do their best to be preventative in their actions to decrease the continuation of addiction that may run within the family. -L. Lager

Citations

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5599355/pdf/nihms897835.pdf