The relationship between parental history and substance use severity in drug treatment patients

The authors explored the relationship between the history of parental problematic alcohol and drug use and their adult children's alcohol and drug use disorders. Subjects were 347 admissions to an outpatient substance abuse program. There was a positive relationship between the number of parents affected by alcohol and/or drug problems and the percentage of probands with co-existing alcohol and drug use disorders for probands with alcohol use disorders but not for those with only drug abuse. Probands with two affected parents had significantly higher alcohol abuse scores and drug, family, and psychiatric composite test scores than those with a negative family history. This preliminary study indicates that the severity of a proband's substance use disorder may be influenced by parental substance use history.