This blog has shared thousands of posts about drug use, addiction, treatment, and recovery over the last 20 years. Very few of those posts focused on the effects of adult substance use problems on children.
All of our contributors tend to focus on adults with addiction in their professional lives, and we know that recovery has ripple effects that extend to families, neighborhoods, faith communities, workplaces, etc.
Recovery for the person with addiction is important, but children deserve a focus all their own. Why?
McCabe et al.1 reported that “Nearly 19 million children were estimated to be living in a household with at least 1 parent with SUD, accounting for one-quarter of all US children in 2023.”
Kuppens et al.2 concluded that parental drug use is associated “with broad detrimental effects on physical, psychological, and cognitive well-being.”
Hopkins et al.3 reported that “approximately one in six [Australian] caregivers (17.1%) indicated that a child had been affected because of someone else’s drinking in the past 12 months” and that “almost 5% of caregivers responded that a child had been affected ‘a lot’” (That’s 17.1% and 5% of all Australian children.)
The National Association for Children of Addiction (NACoA) supports children and families affected by familial substance use and equips the adults and professionals who support and serve them.
Consider joining NACoA’s campaign by walking, giving, or sharing.
- McCabe, S. E., McCabe, V. V., & Schepis, T. S. (2025). US Children Living With a Parent With Substance Use Disorder. JAMA pediatrics, 179(7), 797–799. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2025.0828 ↩︎
- Kuppens, S., Moore, S. C., Gross, V., Lowthian, E., & Siddaway, A. P. (2020). The Enduring Effects of Parental Alcohol, Tobacco, and Drug Use on Child Well-being: A Multilevel Meta-Analysis. Development and Psychopathology, 32(2), 765–778. doi:10.1017/S0954579419000749 ↩︎
- Hopkins C, Kuntsche S, Dwyer R, Anderson-Luxford D, Laslett A-M. (2025). Harm to children from others’ drinking: A survey of caregivers in Australia. Addiction, 119(11), 1956–1963. https://doi.org/10.1111/add.16637 ↩︎
