Barriers to Desistance from Substance Use Among Urban African American Males: The Role of Racial Discrimination and Drug Dependence in Understanding the Marriage Effect

INTRODUCTION: Substance use research focuses primarily on identifying risk factors important for the onset of use, escalation to substance use disorders, and development of health consequences. An understudied but critical area of research is why people stop using drugs. One prominent criminological theory on desistance is Sampson and Laub’s age-graded theory of informal social control, which posits that adult social bonds stemming from discrete life events, such as marriage, influence desistance from crime, especially among males; yet, there is little research on how life events influence desistance from substance use specifically.    

METHODS: The current study addresses two major research questions: 1) does marriage facilitate desistance from substance use?; and 2) does the impact of marriage depend on certain barriers to desistance (i.e., racial discrimination, drug dependence)?  To address these issues, we analyze existing data covering 35 years in the lives of a community cohort of African American males from the Woodlawn neighborhood of Chicago. This cohort is particularly well-suited to answer these research questions due to 1) the prospectively collected data from ages 6 to 42, 2) the wealth of data on drug use over the life course, and 3) the extensive information on the presence and timing of marriage and moderating conditions.

RESULTS:  Although marriage is less common among African American males than whites, hierarchical linear models indicate that being in a state of marriage reduces substance use by 17.0% for men.  Moreover, this effect is significantly weaker among males who experience drug dependence by age 32 than those who do not (5.7% and 21.2%, respectively) and among males who experience personal discrimination by age 32 than those who do not (16.0% and 19.7%, respectively).  Additional moderators will also be investigated.

CONCLUSIONS:  The key prevention implication is that focusing on substance use alone, regardless of the consideration of situational context, such as racial discrimination, may be less fruitful when considering how life events and social bonds can facilitate desistance from substance use. In light of these findings, a more holistic approach may be necessary to fully understand the complexity of the desistance process from substance use, particularly among African American males.