Childhood ACEs connection to Adult Addiction - An Article Executive Summary

By Julene Lesher, RN, BSN- LPS School Nurse

In the article “Addiction Doc Says: It’s Not the Drugs. It’s the ACEs…Adverse Childhood Experiences,” by Jane Ellen Stevens, Dr. Daniel Sumrok, director of the Center for Addiction Sciences at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center’s College of Medicine, says addiction should not be called addiction, but should instead be called ritualized compulsive comfort-seeking. Dr. Sumrok is board-certified in addiction medicine.

He says ritualized compulsive comfort-seeking is a normal response to ACEs and that the solution to changing ritualized compulsive comfort-seeking behavior of addiction is to address the ACEs with therapy and medication and with respect. He wants to help them find a comfort- seeking behavior that won’t harm or incarcerate them.

Dr. Sumrok has compiled an innovative approach to addictions: treat people with respect instead of blaming or shaming them; listen intently to what they have to say; integrate healing traditions of the culture in which they live; use prescription drugs if necessary; and integrate the science behind adverse childhood experiences: ACEs. In his work, Dr. Somrok saw 1,200 addicted patients, and of those more than 1,100 had an ACE score of 3 or more. ACEs come from the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACE Study) that looked at the response 10 types of childhood trauma affect long-term health. He says toxic stress that comes from ACEs damages children’s developing brains, can affect genes and be passed from one generation to another. The higher the ACEs score the higher the risk of consequences such as addiction. He says it does not matter that the specific type of ACEs, the higher the score the greater the chance for negative effects on health (chronic disease), negative effects socially, and increase in potential for addiction.

He also says the brain is elastic and the body wants to heal and that resilience research focuses on what happens when trauma-informed practices, for example in education and the court system, are put in place. Dr. Sumrok says treating those affected with respect builds trust, and trust builds health.

At Lincoln Public Schools, Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS), as well as other evidence-based social emotional supports and trauma-informed practices, are provided to all students.

Lastly, in the article Dr. Sumrok says it is important to practice empathy and the art of listening, while acknowledging and understanding how the experiences in a person’s childhood and adulthood have shaped their lives and health.

Link to complete article.

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