The Society of Captives

:Social Mindscapes: An Invitation to Cognitive Sociology

Hard Time: Understanding and Reforming the Prison

OBJECTIVE
Illicit drug use is identified in Healthy People 2010 as a leading health indicator because it is associated with multiple deleterious health outcomes, such as sexually transmitted diseases, human immunodeficiency virus, viral hepatitis, and numerous social problems among adolescents and adults. Improved understanding of the influence of stressful or traumatic childhood experiences on initiation and development of drug abuse is needed.


METHODS
We examined the relationship between illicit drug use and 10 categories of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and total number of ACEs (ACE score). A retrospective cohort study of 8613 adults who attended a primary care clinic in California completed a survey about childhood abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction; illicit drug use; and other health-related issues. The main outcomes measured were self-reported use of illicit drugs, including initiation during 3 age categories: <or=14 years, 15 to 18 years, or as an adult (>or=19 years); lifetime use for each of 4 birth cohorts dating back to 1900; drug use problems; drug addiction; and parenteral drug use.


RESULTS
Each ACE increased the likelihood for early initiation 2- to 4-fold. The ACE score had a strong graded relationship to initiation of drug use in all 3 age categories as well as to drug use problems, drug addiction, and parenteral drug use. Compared with people with 0 ACEs, people with >or=5 ACEs were 7- to 10-fold more likely to report illicit drug use problems, addiction to illicit drugs, and parenteral drug use. The attributable risk fractions as a result of ACEs for each of these illicit drug use problems were 56%, 64%, and 67%, respectively. For each of the 4 birth cohorts examined, the ACE score also had a strong graded relationship to lifetime drug use.


CONCLUSIONS
The ACE score had a strong graded relationship to the risk of drug initiation from early adolescence into adulthood and to problems with drug use, drug addiction, and parenteral use. The persistent graded relationship between the ACE score and initiation of drug use for 4 successive birth cohorts dating back to 1900 suggests that the effects of adverse childhood experiences transcend secular changes such as increased availability of drugs, social attitudes toward drugs, and recent massive expenditures and public information campaigns to prevent drug use. Because ACEs seem to account for one half to two third of serious problems with drug use, progress in meeting the national goals for reducing drug use will necessitate serious attention to these types of common, stressful, and disturbing childhood experiences by pediatric practice.

Childhood Abuse, Neglect, and Household Dysfunction and the Risk of Illicit Drug Use: The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study

The narrative study of identity promotes the idea that people develop social identities by telling stories about themselves and others. Through these stories, people associate with desired groups a...

A narrative approach to studying symbolic boundaries among drug users: A qualitative meta-synthesis:

The role of gender in the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and delinquency and substance use in adolescence

Drug users often define themselves as functional users and depict others as dysfunctional (i.e. junkies). Previous research on the social identities of drug users has focused on the symbolic boundaries they create to distance themselves from stigmatized others. Investigators have yet to focus on how users account for their own boundary violations. Here, we examine the narratives of 30 former women methamphetamine (meth) users to determine how they make distinctions between functional and dysfunctional meth users (i.e. “meth heads”). The distinctions they make are based on users’ abilities to maintain control of their lives and to hide their use from outsiders. Those who saw themselves as functional but who engaged in behaviors inconsistent with this image accounted for these behaviors to maintain desired identities. We show the complexity of drug users’ identities and illustrate how anti-drug campaigns that provide grotesque caricatures of drug users may prolong drug using careers.

Identities, Boundaries, and Accounts of Women Methamphetamine Users

Research on general strain theory has demonstrated the impact of strain on decisions to engage in crime and delinquency. However, people differ in their responses to strain and only some resort to crime or delinquency. There remain gaps in our knowledge of when, and under what conditions, individuals will react to strain with offending behavior. We rely on interviews with 40 incarcerated men to understand how they cope with specific prison strains, and why they make such coping choices. We find considerable variation in inmates’ coping responses. They use a variety of coping strategies—behavioral, cognitive, and emotional—and only some of these strategies involve offending. Our findings indicate that responses to prison strain are partly a function of past experience with strains, including prior experimentation with coping techniques. Results highlight the unfolding nature of the coping process and expose factors that deserve further attention in tests of GST.

Adapting to Prison Life: A Qualitative Examination of the Coping Process among Incarcerated Offenders

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are linked to problematic outcomes, but it remains unclear how ACEs affect developmental patterns of harmful behavior, and whether this varies by gender. This s...

Lindsay Leban

Papers

The role of gender in the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and delinquency and substance use in adolescence

Identities, Boundaries, and Accounts of Women Methamphetamine Users

Adapting to Prison Life: A Qualitative Examination of the Coping Process among Incarcerated Offenders

The Effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences and Gender on Developmental Trajectories of Internalizing and Externalizing Outcomes

“The times have changed, the dope has changed”: Women's cooking roles and gender performances in shake methamphetamine markets*