AUDIO – ALANON HERE WE COME –
May 13, 2025 – “If one-quarter of kids in the U.S. have a parent with a substance use disorder, that tells us that every day in our clinics we are encountering many, if not dozens of families that are affected by substance use disorders,” he adds. “And we need to be poised and ready to help support those families.”
The new study used data from the 2023 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, a federal survey that estimated the prevalence of substance use and mental health disorders based on the most updated criteria in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5 (DSM-5). The national survey is managed by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, but the team in charge of the survey was let go as part of the recent reduction in force. It is unclear how the cuts will affect the future of the survey.
The study’s main finding is significantly higher than previous estimates (7 million in a study originally published in 2022), which had relied on diagnostic criteria from the DSM-IV.
The new study also estimated how many children have a parent with a moderate or severe addiction as opposed to mild.
