Adoption can be a fantastic way for a child to enter a loving family and for a family to grow. Adoption can also be an indicator of trauma, which can be a major factor in addiction. November is National Adoption Month, so there is no better time to increase your understanding of how adoption can impact the risk of a person developing substance use disorders and how you can help. At Highland Hospital Behavioral Health in Charleston, West Virginia, we support children, adolescents, and adults who are dealing with mental health and substance use disorders.
Understanding Types of Adoption
Adoption can occur in several different ways. The type of adoption a person experiences can make a difference in what experiences they have and how they see their own value. Some of the most common forms of adoption include:
- Foster care adoption – children are generally removed from their birth parents due to concerns around safety. Abuse or neglect may have occurred before placement. When children are placed in foster care, there is typically a goal of reunification with their birth family. Children may experience many moves between foster homes in the months and or years they spend in care. These frequent moves are stressful and make it difficult to build lasting relationships and maintain academic success. These adoptions often involve minimal financial cost and may be subsidized by the government, but families wishing to adopt foster children need to be licensed according to the rules of their state or county.
- Domestic, private adoption – these adoptions often occur during infancy. The adopted person may or may not meet their birth parents following adoption. In some cases, adoptees may not realize they have been adopted until later in life unless their adoptive parents choose to share this information. There is no licensing process for these adoptions to occur, but legal fees can add up to tens of thousands of dollars and adoptive parents may be asked to cover the pregnancy costs of the birth mother.
- International adoption – children who were born outside of the United States are adopted by American parents, who bring them to the United States. Children may already be several years old and may not have learned English when they arrive in their adoptive home. International adoption can be quite costly, as parents generally travel to the child’s country of origin to meet with them and complete necessary paperwork before bringing them home. There are also legal fees associated with helping the child to become an American citizen.
- Step-parent adoption – when a person marries the mother or father of a child, they might be able to become the legal parent of that child if that child’s other parent is not involved or is willing to sign legal documents giving up their parental rights and responsibilities.
These adoptions can be open or closed. If an adoption is closed, the birth parents do not receive information and do not have contact with the child after the adoption occurs. If it is open, they might have visits and/or the adoptive parents might send them pictures or letters, updating them about the child’s life.
Trauma Among Adoptees
The unique circumstances that each adopted person faces can create trauma, depending on the individual. The types of stressful situations that could place an adopted person at higher risk for mental health and substance abuse disorders include:
- Grief and loss
- Wondering why their birth parents did not keep them
- Feeling unloved by birth family
- Questioning how much their adopted parents love them
- Trouble building and maintaining long-term relationships – this may be particularly true for fostered children whose many moves prevented them from forming strong friendships and family relationships. This can lead to increased failed intimate relationships in adulthood.
- Questions around identity – these can often be triggered during the school years, when teachers assign projects like bringing in baby photos, constructing family trees, and writing autobiographies. Children may be left wondering:
- Who am I?
- Where do I come from?
- What is my heritage?
- Lack of genetic information – adoptees are often asked for family health history in medical appointments, and they may also wonder about things other people take for granted, like where they got their eye or hair color.
Adoptees and Addiction
Adopted people are twice as likely to develop a substance use disorder as people who were not adopted. Given the challenges adoptees may experience, it is understandable that they could be at greater risk for substance use disorders. Additionally, their birth family may have a history of addiction, which can be inherited, and they could have been exposed to substances before birth.
Protecting Adoptees from Addiction
The good news is that adoption does not mean someone will develop an addiction. There are protective factors that can reduce a person’s risk of developing a substance use disorder.
- Healthy, stable attachments
- Being able to live authentic lives, where they do not feel required to be someone they are not in order to gain the approval of adults
- Access to mental health resources
- Societal acceptance of adoption as a valid way to build a family
- Having healthy behaviors around substances modeled by adults in their life
At Highland Hospital Behavioral Health, our staff provide trauma-informed care that is tailored to meet the individual mental health and substance abuse treatment needs of each patient we serve. We also include our patients’ support systems in their care whenever possible.
