Many alcoholics report coexisting psychiatric disorders such as social phobia, agoraphobia, and post traumatic stress disorder.
New research indicates that childhood abuse – sexual, physical or both – may play a role…
in the later development of coexisting psychological issues among alcoholics.
Findings published in the March issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research (ACER) have uncovered the important role that an environment of childhood abuse – sexual, physical or both – appears to play in the development of psychiatric comorbidity among alcoholic patients.
“Our findings clearly indicate that childhood abuse – more specifically, sexual abuse and combinations of sexual and physical abuse – is an important factor for the presence of comorbid anxiety disorders in treated alcoholics, particularly regarding social phobia, agoraphobia and post traumatic stress disorder,” said Willemien Langeland, a freelance trauma researcher at the University of Amsterdam and the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, as well as first author of the study.
Langeland added that compared with other environmental risk factors, childhood sexual and “dual” abuse contribute independently to a more severe clinical profile, that is, more comorbid diagnoses in abused versus non-abused alcoholic patients. “This has not been previously demonstrated in treated alcoholics,” she said. “In addition, more severe and intrusive forms of early sexual abuse as well as early multiple traumas are associated with a more complex symptom constellation that includes dysthymia (a chronic mood disorder) and suicidality.”
“This study and a few others clearly show that seeing alcoholics only as people having an alcohol problem should be a thing of the past,” said Onno van der Hart, professor of psychopathology of chronic traumatization in the department of clinical psychology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. “Very often the alcohol dependency or abuse is an indissoluble part of a history of childhood maltreatment or other adverse life events or conditions, as well as a range of other mental health problems. Insight into such complex patterns will lead to the realization that the simple treatment goal of ‘stopping drinking’ makes sense only when the overall treatment is geared toward this more complex system of problems.”
Researchers collected data during eight months (September 1994 - May 1995) from 155 alcoholics (122 males, 33 females) applying for treatment in a center for substance-use disorders. All study participants were assessed for demographics and treatment history through use of the European Addiction Severity Index. Numerous childhood stressors were indexed by the Structured Trauma Interview, and lifetime diagnoses of major depression, dysthymia, panic
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7 responses so far ↓
1 fredjoiners // Apr 18, 2008 at
Great article Bill.
Keep up the good work
2 cirereyes // Apr 20, 2008 at
That's something nice to know; at least I’m learning something new from this blog site. So that's one of the reasons why some people become alcoholics. I kept on wondering why some people become really addicted in alcohol. If they didn’t have that bad childhood experience they wouldn’t have this kind of addiction.
3 SunDrop // Apr 23, 2008 at
I know it most likely sounds like a cliche but most alcoholics really are *trying* to drink their troubles away.
Many individuals who were molested or have been through other traumatic events in their lives, never go a day without thinking about what happened.
So what better way to avoid thinking about the issue? If you think about it every night, drink until you can't remember anything from the night before, right?
Wrong! The trouble is, it becomes a vicious cycle. You always remember again the next day. And then you feel the need to do it all over again.
The intense trauma will never be forgotten. But it is amazing how many people think that it can.
4 Vernors76 // Apr 23, 2008 at
I am not at all surprised to see that there appears to be correlation between childhood abuse, especially sexual abuse, and adult alcoholism, however I don't agree with the comment that there would be no addiction if it weren't for a bad childhood experience. There are plenty of people battling alcohol addictions who were never abused as children.
5 liowkc // May 16, 2008 at
Alcoholism is never an isolated problem; it is usually compounded with other psychological and mental disorders. This is pobably why alcoholism is difficult to treat as the problem involves more than the physical alcohol addiction.
6 Leeuh // Jul 5, 2008 at
This article makes perfect sense. A lot of people make an attempt to mask their problems by drinking. Even people who wouldn't be classified as having an addiction problem, are usually trying to drink something unhappy from their lives. It can be as simple as having a bad day at work.
7 Danuielle // Aug 21, 2008 at
I was sexually abused as a child. I also had to deal with death very early in life. I started out an alcoholic, then went into addiction. Now that I am in recovery I've come to a point where these issues HAD TO be addressed or I couldn't continue to learn and grow in my program of sobriety. It's been my experience that alcoholism and addiction are just some of the symptoms of my mental disorders.
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