ADHD and Drug and Alcohol Use

By admin - January 25, 2009 - 17:54 Etc/GMT+7

Childhood ADHD and Conduct Disorder as Independent Predictors of Male Alcohol Dependence at Age 40
A recent Danish Study on Alcoholism studied males for a period of forty years examining the antecedent predictors of adult male alcoholism. This study revealed the correlation of premorbid behaviors consistent with childhood conduct disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). At 30-year and 40-year follow-ups, a psychiatrist used structured interviews and criteria from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Third Edition, Revised, to quantify lifetime alcoholism severity and to diagnose alcohol-use disorder.

Subjects who were above a median split on both the ADHD and the conduct disorder scales were more than six times more likely to develop alcohol dependence than subjects who scored below the median on both. Although the two childhood measures were correlated, a multiple regression showed that each independently predicted a measure of lifetime alcoholism severity. ADHD comorbid with conduct disorder was the strongest predictor of later alcohol dependence.

ADHD and Drug Abuse

A number of studies show that individuals with ADHD are as much as seven times more likely than others to develop an antisocial personality or drug abuse problem in adulthood.

Researchers consistently report an overlap of ADHD and addictive disorders beginning in adolescence and continuing into early adulthood affecting at least 10 to 20 percent of the adult population with ADHD. Males appear to predominate. Problems with antisocial behavior in this subpopulation are the norm rather than the exception. In addition, research suggests that one-third of adults with ADHD abuse alcohol, with one-fifth having a history of drug abuse.

Studies have found that nearly 40 percent of all cocaine and opiate abusers meet the diagnostic criteria for ADHD. In comparison to other opiate and cocaine abusers, those with a history of ADHD generally began their abuse at an earlier age, exhibited more severe abusing habits, and showed higher rates of criminal

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