Caroline Substance Abuse

An adult’s personality is rooted in childhood needs and experiences, and how people grow up determines how effectively they cope with reality and the demands it brings. Childhood is about exploring the world and finding one’s place. Individuals develop the basics of themselves, their environment, and the people that surround them in their lives, such as their families. Importantly, you begin to develop the abilities to rationally and effectively learn how to cope with your environment and develop skills to help you face the obstacles that life throws at you. While a child, individuals look at their family, religion, and peer groups as right and a type of moral guidance to help you learn how to cope with the obstacles you may face, as well …show more content…
One interesting study that seeks to explore some of the issues that could be influencing Caroline’s behaviors is Genetic and Familial Environmental Influences on the Risk for Drug Abuse conducted by Kenneth S. Kendler, a psychiatrist at Virgin Commonwealth University, and his team on the mission to find the relationship between genetic factors, environmental factors, and drug abuse. Kendler et al. (2012) found a relationship between adopted children whose biological parents had a history of major mental illness, substance abuse, and criminal convictions and an increased risk of drug use among the adoptees. The researchers also concluded that the “risk for DA (drug abuse) in adopted children is increased by disruption in the adoptive parent-adopted child bond by death or divorce but also by a range of indices of a disrupted adoptive home environment and deviant peer influences such as parental alcoholism and sibling drug abuse, respectively” (Kendler et al., 2012). This certainly applies to Caroline, whose biological mother was an alcoholic and has major depression and bipolar disorder. Caroline also experienced a divorce with her adopted parents and she surrounded herself to peers who had deviant behaviors and were poor influences. Also, because she grew up in an affluent neighborhood, drug availability was more easily accessible along with the substance-using friends who she surrounds herself with. Critical to note, according to Kendler, Sundquist, and Ohlsson, “adopted children at high genetic risk were more sensitive to the pathogenic effects of adverse family environments than those at low genetic risk. In other words, genetic effects on DA (drug abuse) were less potent in low-risk than high-risk environments” (Kendler et al., 2012). This is critical because it shows the