Maybe you had a rough childhood. Perhaps there’s one singular moment you experienced as a kid that still haunts you. Or you may even have a hard time remembering extended periods of your childhood and don’t know why. All of these situations could result from adverse childhood experiences (also known as ACEs) from your formative years. These experiences can linger in the form of childhood trauma in adults. And the fallout can lead to a number of difficulties in your modern, everyday life, including substance abuse and addiction.
A Quick Look at Childhood Trauma
Adverse childhood experiences and childhood trauma are deeply connected. According to Northwestern University, childhood trauma arises from a scary, dangerous, violent, or life-threatening event that happens in childhood, from ages zero to 18. In this experience, the traumatic event can happen directly to you. Yet you could also experience childhood trauma as a result of witnessing the event happen to someone else.
At the moment of trauma, it’s common for children to feel helpless, overwhelmed, or upset. However, the experience of trauma affects everyone differently. That means what is considered childhood trauma for some may not be traumatic for others.
Once the traumatic event subsides, its effects can persist long afterwards, shares The National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN). Some of the signs of childhood trauma that children may continue to feel include:
- Fear, terror, or helplessness
- Pounding chest
- Loss of bowel or bladder control
- Vomiting
- Feeling overwhelmed by their responses
Understanding Adverse Childhood Experiences
These specific events that cause trauma in your life as a child are called adverse childhood experiences. Such events can occur for a specific, isolated period of time. Or they can arise from specific aspects of your environment that negatively impact your sense of safety, stability, and bonding, shares the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
A study by the CDC concluded that adverse childhood experiences are actually common in your formative years, as 61% of adults in the United States have experienced at least one ACE in their lifetime. Among US adults, 16% have even experienced four or more ACEs. Within the population, however, females and racial or ethnic minorities are the most likely to experience four or more ACEs.
When an adverse childhood experience happens to you, the toxic stress it generates can actually change your brain development and affect how your body responds to stress. These changes can consequently lead to physical and mental health problems as you grow into an adult. As many adults try to look back on the source of their struggles, they find that ACEs trauma is very intertwined in their lives.
Common Adverse Childhood Experiences
In 1998, a now well-known CDC-Kaiser Permanente study analyzed the impact of adverse childhood experiences on physical and mental health problems in over 17,000 adults. The study divided these ACEs into three categories: abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction. Among those, the study identified 10 key adverse childhood experiences which are still commonly accepted as ACEs today, including:
The 10 Common ACEs
- Physical Abuse: This involves activities causing intentional physical harm, including hitting, kicking, punching, throwing, burning, shaking, or beating.
- Emotional Abuse: Any behavior that negatively impacts a child’s mental health is considered emotional abuse, and may include threatening, rejecting, isolating, ridiculing, and purposefully not talking to a child for an extended period of time.
- Sexual Abuse: Such abuse sexually engages or exploits a child directly, and includes unwanting touching, rape, child pornography, and indecent exposure.
- Emotional Neglect: This includes failing to meet a child’s emotional needs, ranging from ignoring the child or not providing social support.
- Physical Neglect: This type of neglect involves not providing food, clothing, medical care, shelter, and other basic physical needs.
- Mental Illness: Living with someone with a mental health disorder may model inappropriate behaviors and leave a child improperly cared for.
- An Incarcerated Parent: Having an incarcerated parent or caregiver exposes a child to single-parent challenges, feelings of abandonment, and potentially inappropriate behaviors modeled by the parent prior to imprisonment.
- Witnessing Your Mother Treated Violently: Seeing violence in the home is traumatic for a child in general, but especially seeing violence toward their primary caregiver—usually the mother—due to the child’s attachment to her.
- Substance Use in the Home: As a result of substance use in the home, the child may not be properly cared for, and the child can also be exposed to abuse, domestic violence, neglect, and other ACEs.
- Divorce: When divorce happens, a child is exposed to fighting, yet they also may be neglected in the process. The child may also feel responsible for the separation or unloved by their parents.
Adverse Childhood Experiences: Signs of Childhood Trauma in Adults
If you’re one of the many people who experienced childhood trauma due to ACEs in your life, its impact can continue to leave its mark in adulthood if left untreated. In fact, the more ACEs you have in your history (also known as your ACEs score), the more likely you are to have negative physical and mental health outcomes as an adult, shares the University of Rochester.
So how can you determine if childhood trauma is still affecting your life decades later as an adult? There are actually common symptoms and signs of childhood trauma in adults that can indicate you may be feeling the effects of unresolved trauma today. These signs include:
- Substance misuse, dependency, or abuse
- Stress, anxiety, mood, or personality disorders
- Behavioral issues or emotional immaturity
- Inability to deal with confrontation or conflict
SOURCE: Palo Alto University
Beyond the signs above, untreated childhood trauma in adults can also lead to physical issues like obesity, diabetes, heart disease, asthma, and cancer. You may also have adapted a victim mindset due to unresolved childhood trauma, resulting in a lack of self-confidence and low self-esteem. ACES trauma can also generate attachment disorders in adulthood, causing unhealthy relationships, codependency, intimacy or trust issues, and a number of other relational challenges.
Unresolved Childhood Trauma and Addiction
When the effects of childhood trauma linger while your brain develops and you grow up, those past adverse childhood experiences can have a lasting impact on your mental and emotional health in adulthood, as mentioned previously. For starters, childhood trauma in adults can lead to mental health disorders such as anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and more.
However, childhood trauma from adverse childhood experiences can also facilitate the development of poor emotional regulation skills throughout life. This means you have a hard time managing negative emotions and stress. When these difficult feelings arise, it’s easy to seek out the things that feel good as a way to cope, such as drugs, alcohol, sex, or food.
When you drink or take drugs to self-medicate your mental health issues and negative feelings, doing so may feel good in the moment. However, the effects don’t last. When trying to regulate the challenging emotions that come your way next time, you may reach for the bottle again. Your repeated use of substances can lead to your brain developing a chemical dependency on the dopamine that drugs or alcohol provides. In other words, you have an addiction to the substance and need it to function.
Addressing Childhood Trauma and Addiction in Professional Treatment
What should you do if you’re struggling with unresolved childhood trauma and addiction simultaneously? Due to the seriousness of these issues, you can’t simply overcome them both on your own. You need to partner with a professional treatment center if you want to heal from your trauma, adverse childhood experiences, and addiction. But it’s important to partner with a treatment facility that takes a comprehensive approach to your recovery. That means addressing the root causes of your addiction—not just your symptoms.
At Sana at Stowe in Stowe, Vermont, our drug and alcohol addiction treatment programs use both evidence-based and experiential therapies to help you achieve long-term recovery. We take a trauma-focused approach to your care, partnering with you to restore your safety, dignity, and connection in treatment. As a result, you’re equipped to heal from both your childhood trauma and addiction (plus any co-occurring mental health disorders). If you’re ready to reclaim your inherent worth and lasting sobriety, call us today. You can also complete our free adverse childhood experiences test as a first step.
