The role of family in the initiation and enabling of alcohol and substance abuse

Abstract

Family is the basic unit of a nation, and the primary institution for knowledge and skill acquisition, and it further shapes individual attitudes, desires, and behavior, both in the right and negative manner. The family regarding the rising dependence on alcohol and drug abuse has not been a critical focus for empirical analysis, a gap that this study sought to fill. The study utilized secondary data sources from Kenya, sourced from the internet, particularly in journals on alcohol and drug abuse. Content analysis was adopted, and data was presented in themes. It was found that there are factors within the family that promote the initiation of alcohol and substance abuse and maintain its continuous use. These factors included different parenting styles; authoritarian, permissive, and uninvolved styles of parenting, the circumstances and conditions within the home environment, primary caregiver role modeling and any close relatives, adverse childhood experiences and in some instances, disposition from genetic makeup, that cause inter-generational alcoholism in certain families. To resolve this problem, the family should be recognized as a focal area of interventions to curb alcohol and drug abuse.