Substance Abuse, Social Values Change and Acceleration of Family Destabilization

Background: Substance abuse has the potential to change value orientations and affects all aspects of human life. Objectives: The text aims to show the shift in value orientations of respondents who use addictive substances compared to respondents who do not. Methodology: One-way ANOVA was used in the statistical analysis of the dependence of the values on the occurrence of abusive behaviour, with dependencies at the level of p ≤ 0.05 considered statistically significant. Results: There were statistically significant differences between the group of respondents with abstinence from each addictive substance and the group of respondents without abstinence. Substance abuse shifts pro-family values towards greater individualization and thus threatens and destabilizes the family. It strengthens community-oriented values and weakens family-oriented values. Conclusions: The transformation of the value system leads to a destabilization of family ties, which cease to be a priority. Working with values should be an opportunity for social pedagogy, social work, and all types of schools. Non-formal and informal education present particular opportunities for values education. In many cases, it is unnecessary to change the value system, but only to show the non-deviant way of fulfilling values.