Is There a Correlation Between Trauma and Substance Use Disorder?

Is there a correlation between trauma and substance use disorder?

There's a significant correlation between trauma and substance use disorder. An extremely high percentage, as many as 90% of the people who have a substance use disorder, have some sort of trauma and may even have some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Substance use is considered a primary disease in itself, although most people especially with trauma, found that substance use was a solution to their emotional turmoil from the trauma that ultimately became a problem. 

In addition, People who have experienced trauma, especially during childhood when the brain is developing, their brain develops in such a way that it may even predispose them more so to developing some sort of a substance use disorder. So, those things quite frequently, go hand in hand.

This Ask the Expert is an edited excerpt from the webinar, Co-Occurring Substance Use and Mental Disorders: Best Practices and Evidence-Based Treatments, presented by John Smith, PhD, LCSW.