Stress & Addiction 1
Stress & Addiction
Rachelle F. Scheid
Colorado Christian University
Stress & Addiction 2
Stress & Addiction
Addiction and Stress are often two sides of the same coin, going hand in hand as a
potential method of coping from stress, it could be a form of avoidance coping, in which the
person attempts to use a temporary solution to cope with a more than temporary problem or issue
usually revolving around emotions. Where some forms of distancing or avoidance of stress can
be useful, addiction can be detrimental and dangerous depending on the type of substance the
person chooses to cope with. Addiction or “avoidance coping interferes with our ability to
experience personal growth from negative experiences” (Harrington, 2019, p. 305) and this
proves to be a maladaptive form of coping, overall. Most importantly, substance use and
addiction are most commonly found in individuals with long and early exposure to life stress,
such as domestic abuse, maltreatment of the individual, and parental psychopathology, leaving
the youngest of children to be the most likely to cope using through substance abuse and
addiction, according to Dr. Roos, Horn, Berkman, Pears, and Fisher (2018) in their article
Leveraging translational neuroscience to inform early intervention and addiction prevention for
children exposed to early life stress. Substance Abuse and Addiction should be more carefully
studied in the efforts and hopes of further understanding this methodology of coping, as well as
to better formulate methods of therapy specific to Substance Abuse and Addiction. The study of
addiction may also shed light on the damage that substance abuse and addiction has, not only on
the individual but their family as well.
“Exposure to stress increases vulnerability to drug abuse, as well as relapse liability in addicted
individuals. Chronic drug use alters stress response in a manner that increases drug-seeking
behaviors and relapse” (Doura & Unterwald, 2016). Why so? Perhaps because during the
experiences of negative emotions, particularly intensely negative emotions, impulsive
Stress & Addiction 3
personality types are more likely to act out, which can be linked to both eating disorders as well
as substance abuse, according to Owens, Amlung, Stojek and Killop’s 2018 article Negative
urgency moderates reactivity to laboratory stress inductions. In fact, in the same article, a
sample of 148 adults was assessed for their impulse control in response to negative urgency
(NUR), measuring the severity of their alcohol intake, alcohol misuse or binge eating and further
measured the negative effect on their psychophysiological arousal after being subjected to a
stressful occurrence. “As predicted, NUR positively moderated the effects of stress induction on
self-reported negative affect and relative reinforcing value, although not arousal. Individuals
exhibiting elevated NUR also exhibited greater alcohol misuse, although not greater binge eating
severity” (Owens et al. 2018, p. 385). Coincidentally this is agreed upon in the article written by
Domingues, Antonio, Oliveira, and Quandros (2019). In their article Consequence of Two
