Understanding the Deep Link Between Trauma and Addiction
For decades, people and professionals viewed addiction as a moral failing or a series of bad choices. Treatment methods reflected this, sometimes using tough-love approaches that focused narrowly on stopping drug or alcohol use — without addressing why people used substances in the first place.
Over time, research and clinical experience revealed a powerful truth: many people struggling with addiction have experienced trauma — often early in life, sometimes across generations.
This realization led to a major shift in addiction care: the rise of Trauma-Informed Care (TIC).
What Is Trauma-Informed Care?
Trauma-informed Care is an method that recognizes how trauma shapes behaviour, thinking, and relationships — including how people use substances to cope. Rather than asking, “What’s wrong with you?” trauma-informed Care asks, “What happened to you?”
It assumes that many people seeking help are carrying unresolved pain from abuse, neglect, violence, racism, discrimination, or loss — and that healing these wounds is essential for long-term recovery.
How Trauma and Addiction Are Connected
Key Statistics:
🔹 Up to 75% of people in substance use treatment have a history of trauma, including physical or sexual abuse (SAMHSA).
🔹 People with Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are 5 to 10 times more likely to develop substance use disorders.
🔹 Women with PTSD are significantly more likely to develop alcohol or drug dependence than women without it.
🔹 Indigenous populations and marginalized communities often experience intergenerational trauma, contributing to higher addiction rates.
When someone struggles with addiction, it can be something other than personal trauma; historical or generational pain can play a role.
Substances often serve as a coping mechanism — a way to dull fear, anxiety, shame, or pain. Without addressing the root trauma, recovery becomes more difficult, and relapse is more likely.
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Intergenerational Trauma: How Trauma Can Run in Families
As mentioned above, trauma doesn’t always start with the person struggling today, and this point merits further explanation.
Sometimes, it passes down through parenting, silence, or survival behaviours. It’s especially common in families affected by:
- Generations of addiction or abuse
- Cultural oppression or racism
- Forced separation, war, or migration
An individual may be carrying pain that started long before they were born, and their healing can also be a chance to break the cycle.
The Effects of Trauma
When a parent has unresolved trauma, it can affect how they raise their children, not because they’re bad parents. Traumatic events are sometimes never talked about— whether it’s abuse, addiction, racism, war, or grief. That silence becomes part of the next generation’s emotional landscape—a kind of invisible burden.
Unresolved trauma can create the following behaviours:
- Emotionally distant or unable to express affection, avoiding emotion (numbing, shutting down)
- Overprotective or constantly anxious, control or hypervigilance (needing to control everything to feel safe)
- Quick to anger or unpredictable
- People-pleasing or never saying no
Children often pick up these behaviours without knowing their origin and repeat them in their own lives and relationships.
For example:
Let’s say a grandfather went through the war or a residential school and never spoke about it. He may have become emotionally distant or rigid. His daughter grows up feeling unloved or anxious. She, in turn, becomes a mother who struggles to trust or express love, even though she wants to.
The grandchild may now struggle with low self-esteem, anxiety, or addiction without fully understanding why. That’s intergenerational trauma in action.
The Evolution of Trauma-Informed Care in Addiction Treatment
Old-School Models for Addiction Treatment
- Focused mainly on abstinence
- Used confrontation and shame-based tactics
- Often retraumatizes clients by ignoring emotional needs
Today’s Trauma-Informed Approach
- Prioritizes emotional safety, choice, and empowerment
- Respects the client’s story without judgment
- Sees substance use as a response to pain, not just pathology
- Integrates evidence-based trauma therapies like:
- Somatic therapy
- Trauma-focused CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy)
- Mindfulness and body-based regulation tools
The 6 Core Principles of Trauma-Informed Care
According to SAMHSA (U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration), trauma-informed treatment follows six guiding principles:
- Safety – Physical and emotional safety is foundational.
- Trustworthiness and Transparency – Clear boundaries and honesty in Care.
- Peer Support – Including those with lived experience in the recovery process.
- Collaboration and Mutuality – Clients and providers share power.
- Empowerment, Voice, and Choice – Clients are active participants, not passive recipients.
- Cultural, Historical, and Gender Awareness – Recognizing the role of race, gender, identity, and community in trauma.
Why This Approach Works
Trauma-informed care does more than help people feel safe; it helps them heal. It acknowledges the whole person, not just the addiction, and supports recovery through:
- Improved client retention and engagement
- Lower relapse rates
- Stronger therapeutic relationships
- Greater self-worth and autonomy
Rather than pushing people to stop using substances immediately, trauma-informed care helps them build the internal stability and trust that make recovery sustainable.
How Trauma-Informed Care Is Used in Canada
In Canada, trauma-informed Care is becoming standard in many treatment centres, especially those working with:
- Women with histories of abuse
- Indigenous clients impacted by colonial trauma
- Veterans, refugees, and newcomers with PTSD
- LGBTQ+ individuals facing discrimination-based trauma.
Organizations like CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, have made trauma-informed practices a central part of their training and treatment models.
A New Path to Recovery
Addiction is not just about drugs or alcohol — it’s about pain, survival, and the human need for relief. Trauma-informed Care meets people where they are, with compassion and respect, helping them recover not just from addiction but from the experiences that led them there.
If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction and may have experienced trauma, it’s important to find a program that understands this connection and treats the whole person, not just the symptoms.
If you need assistance, we’re here to help.
Carole Pelland
Substance Abuse
Digital Marketing Administrator
& Author
