Precursor to Substance Abuse in Young Adulthood: Childhood Abuse?

Abstract

Substance Abuse as defined by Abraham Wikler (c.f 1971) is a habitual nonmedical substance-seeking and substance-taking behavior resistant to extinction or suppression by its adverse social and pharmacological consequences. Young adults may be predisposed to Substance Abuse if subjected to Abuse in Childhood. The objectives of this study were to determine the difference; relationship and association between Substance Abuse and Childhood Abuse and its Dimensions. A purposive sampling method was employed to select 60 participants of age group 18-24 years (30 males and 30 females) from four metropolitan cities of India. The Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire (Adult Retrospective Version), developed by Hamby, Finkelhor, Ormrod and Turner (2005) was administered to measure the level of Childhood Abuse. The participants were screened using Drug Abuse Screening Test 10 (Skinner, 1982) and Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (Saunders, Aasland, Babor, De La Fuente & Grant, 1993). Results indicated that there was no significant difference and association between Substance Abuse and Childhood Abuse and its Dimensions. There was a significant relationship between Drug Abuse in men and Sexual Victimization and Alcohol Abuse in Men and Conventional Crime and Witnessing and Indirect Victimization. Since the present study is not in accordance with earlier studies it recommends conducting studies on a wider platform to study this change in outlook.