Drugs and The Family

Engaging “Resistant” Families in Treatment

“…From our most expensive cost‐efficiency estimate (given earlier) of $152.63 for each successfully recruited family, family therapy would have to make a difference of only five more non‐addicted days, beyond the improvement needed to cover the costs of the therapy itself, to have paid for the recruitment effort. Our outcome data (32, 36, 39) indicate that the number of such days produced by structural family therapy greatly exceeds this requirement, to say nothing of the preventive potential of this kind of intervention (33, 34). While other agencies may want to adjust our cost‐analysis formulae to account for their own personnel and other costs, we doubt that their estimates would be substantially more expensive than the above.…”

“…Consideration of family therapy and family‐related factors is relatively recent in the drug dependence field, despite the emergence of several literature reviews (15, 19, 27, 28, 33, 34) and over 370 related titles (31). However, the approach has gained rapid acceptance of late, and a 1976 national survey of 2,012 drug programs by Coleman and Davis (5) indicated that 93 per cent were providing some kind of family services for at least a portion of their clients — in many cases family therapy.…”

“…The study demanded that (a) the addict; (b) both parents or parent surrogates 2 ; and (c) whenever possible, siblings, attend an initial evaluation session before being assigned to a family treatment group. For theoretical reasons (33, 34, 35, 36, 37) and purposes of research design (39), wives, although usually included in treatment, were not required to attend the evaluation exercise. This session included videotaped family interaction tasks and family perceptions tests.…”

The Role of Drugs in Adolescent Suicide Attempts

“…One obvious implication for intervention would be for practitioners to perceive adolescent drug use and abuse as one form of self‐destruction that can be related to suicide. Also, parental drug problems can be viewed by practitioners not only as indicative of some degree of family pathology, but also as modeling self‐destructive coping patterns instead of such healthy behaviors as conflict resolution, independence, and assertiveness (Stanton, 1979). Thus, parental drug abuse can indicate an adolescent's potential for self‐destructive behavior.…”

“…Conger (1977) concludes that excessive drug use among adolescents is not isolated behavior; such individuals generally tend to engage in more deviant and self‐destructive behavior than non‐abusers. Also, both drug abuse and suicidal behaviors tend to be related to similar disturbed patterns of family interaction, particularly negative parenting styles that result in deficient adolescent coping abilities (Conger, 1977; Rosenkrantz, 1978; Schrut, 1964; Stanton, 1979). Crumley (1981) found in a recent study of adolescent suicide attempters that impulsive acting out, including drug and alcohol abuse, was the most common and characteristic symptom of the suicide attempt.…”