Have you ever questioned which came first: the chicken or the egg? That age-old question is much like the dilemma experts grapple with: Do problems in family life lead to drug addiction, or does drug addiction lead to problems in families? Professionals who work with drug abusers take different sides in this debate. Some counselors focus on treating the individual. Others believe that to treat drug addictions one must work with families in order to create more healthy environments. In the early twenty-first century, treatment of adolescents with drug problems tends to take the approach of treating the family.

The American family has changed significantly since the mid- twentieth century. At that time, the standard view of a family was two parents and their children, with the father as the wage earner and the mother as the homemaker. Since then, different forms...