The opioid epidemic has become an extremely pressing public health crisis in the United States with more than forty thousand lives lost in 2016 alone due to opioid drug overdoses. Currently amidst one of the deadliest epidemics yet, our country is seeing countless lives affected by opioids and taken far too early every day, yet it is the parents of the addicts who are the hidden victims of the heroin epidemic. While the vast majority of research has concentrated on the addicts themselves, a lack of attention is devoted to the suffering that family members, specifically parents, sustain as a result of having a son or daughter addicted to opioids. This study aims to illustrate and analyze the experiences of parents who have adult children who suffer from opioid addiction. Drawing on participant observation from parental peer-support groups and in-depth interviews with parents, this thesis examines the role that the adult child’s heroin addiction plays in the lives of their parents. This thesis explores how the everyday traumas that parents of heroin addicts endure often further leads them to become addicted themselves. Parents adopt codependent behaviors through their need to control their child’s addiction which leads to the parent’s self-sacrifice for their child. Further, the role of parental peer-support groups is analyzed to claim that attending support group meetings is a life-changing factor for parents of heroin addicts as they learn, heal, and grow from their child’s addiction. This thesis highlights the need for parents to put the focus on themselves in a time when their own needs become lost.
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