Does ADHD Affect the Course of Substance Abuse?:Findings From a Sample of Adults With and Without ADHD

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Abstract
The authors examined the effects of attention‐deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and psychiatric comorbidity on recovery from psychoactive substance use disorder (PSUD) with 130 referred adults with ADHD and 71 non‐ADHD adults, all of whom had a lifetime history of PSUD. Although PSUD remitted in 80% of both groups, the rate of remission and duration of PSUD was quite different in the ADHD vs. non‐ADHD subjects. The duration of PSUD was 37.2 months longer in the ADHD than in non‐ADHD subjects. The median time to PSUD remission was more than twice as long in ADHD than in control subjects (144 vs. 60 months, respectively). ADHD is associated with a longer duration of PSUD and a significantly slower remission rate. If confirmed, such findings extend previous work showing that ADHD is a risk factor for early initiation and specific pathways of PSUD, providing further evidence of the relevance of this association. (Am J Addict 1998; 7:156–163)