Mothers’ Experiences of Navigating the Sud Treatment System with Their Young Adult Child

When a young adult develops a substance use disorder (SUD), a mother often assumes a caregiving role and experiences strain associated with providing off-time caregiving. The purpose of this paper is to obtain a nuanced understanding of how mothers of young adults with SUDs experience the treatment system. We conducted in-depth interviews with 13 mothers of young adults (ages 22-34) and analyzed the results using transcendental phenomenology. Five themes emerged: Participating in a child’s treatment evokes strong emotions, Navigating the treatment system, Financial hardships, Mothers’ perspective omitted from treatment, and Mothers recommendations for services they believed would have been helpful. Implications include increased parental support, family therapy and access to affordable SUD treatment.