47% of GCASA's admissions are Adult Children of Substance Abusers

In 2008, 47%, or 518 out of 1,094 GCASA admissions are Adult Children of substance abusers.

GCASA's admission data certainly validates the idea that substance abuse is a family disease and that children of substance abusers are at high risk for contracting the disease themselves.

GCASA's prevention program enages in many activities to decrease the risk factors influencing the precipitation of this disease in this high risk population. In other words, we do a lot of work with children of alcoholics and substance abusers, but not enough because of our limited resources. In our treatment programs, we are increasingly including family members of the identified patient in treatment but few counselors feel confident in their family therapy skills and the reimbursement mechanisms work against including families in treatment on a regular basis.

For more information check out the World Service for Adult Children of Alcoholics by clicking here, and the National Association of Children of Alcoholics by clicking here.

This is article # 4 in a series on 2008 GCASA admissions data.