Adolescent Issues

The adolescent years are a time of boundary pushing and experimentation – it’s normal and healthy behavior in a journey to emotional adulthood.

This period of risk taking, however, occurs before the brain has fully developed, and so teens aren’t yet fully able to effectively weigh the likely benefits of an action against the possible consequences – and when it comes to drug and alcohol use, this can have serious consequences during a time in life that’s hard enough as it is!

More than half of American teens get drunk and nearly half admit to having used marijuana.

Drugs and alcohol are a part of the adolescent experience - whether parents like it or not - and it’s up to parents to teach kids about the dangers of drugs and alcohol and to stay involved throughout the teen years; ready to spot substance use and abuse and to intervene at the first signs of trouble.

Teen Drug Use Statistics

The results from the latest Monitoring the Future Study of teen drug and alcohol use and attitudes out of Michigan University provides a pretty good overview of the current adolescent drug use situation in American.

According to the 2009 study:

• 72.3% of high school seniors and 36.6% of eighth graders have used alcohol at least once
• 56.5% of high school seniors have been drunk at least once
• 42% of high school seniors and 16% of eighth graders have used marijuana at least once
• 6.5% of high school seniors have used ecstasy at least once
• 6% of high school seniors have used cocaine at least once
• 13.2% of high seniors have used an opiate other than heroin (OxyContin, Vicodin, etc.) at least once
• 10% of high school seniors have used amphetamines at least once¹

According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, in 2008, 1.9 million teens aged 12-17 (7.8% of all teens) needed treatment for a drug or alcohol problem. Of these 1.9 million, only 143 000 received treatment at an appropriate facility.

 93% of teens needing treatment for an alcohol or drug problem did not get it! ²

Although the teenage years are a period of experimentation, very sudden or worrisome changes in behavior can indicate drug or alcohol abuse. Although none of the following warning signs proves drug abuse, the more signs you observe, the more concerned you should be.

Teen Substance Abuse Warning Signs

• A sudden change in friends (longstanding friends are discarded in favor of a new peer group)
• A loss of interest in personal appearance or hygiene
• A constant need for money, without having much to show for money spent
• A sudden need for secrecy – spending an inordinate amount of time away from family or hidden in the bedroom
• Use of air fresheners or incense (can be used to cover up drug smells)
• A change in sleeping or eating habits
• Slurred speech, un-coordination or other signs of intoxication
• A sudden decline in school performance
• Bloodshot or watery eyes
• A newly confrontational attitude (breaking rules at home and school)
• Suddenly dropping activities that used to be enjoyed, often not replacing these sports or hobbies with anything other than ‘hanging out’
• Strange mood changes or aggressive behavior
• A lack of focus, concentration or memory
• Seeming unhappy or depressed

Eating Dinner with Your Teen

According to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, keeping your teen children drug and alcohol free is as easy as sitting down to dinner together as a family 5 or more times per week. Teens that eat dinner together with their parents more rarely are:

• Twice as likely to use marijuana
• Twice as likely to smoke cigarettes
• 150% more likely to drink alcohol
• Do more poorly in school
• Have worse relationships with parents ¹

Some of the reasons why teens require adolescent specific addiction treatment include:

• The importance and amount of family and parental involvement in the recovery process in a teen treatment program
• Adolescent treatment staff receives training in safe and effective discipline techniques for teens that may ‘test’ the system
• Teens value the opinions of their peers, and so group therapy can be very effective, provided the group is composed of others of the same general age
• Since teens are generally mandated to treatment, program staff must be able and ready to win the interest and engagement of their clients
• Program staff must be experienced in working with teens so that they can recognize underlying behavioral or mental health disorders

Adolescent Addiction Treatment Options

Some of the addiction treatment options open to adolescent clients include:

• Community counseling with a counselor or psychologist familiar with working with teen clients and substance abuse issues – you family doctor may be able to recommend a local practitioner or organization to contact

• Community support groups – Such as AA, NA and others

• Teen specific outpatient addiction treatment programs – These programs are offered on weekends and after school and combine elements like group counseling, drug education, life skills classes and others into a structured time-limited course of treatment

• Teen day treatment programs – More intensive versions of outpatient treatment programs – generally these programs allow students to go to school full time and also complete 3 or 4 hours of therapeutic programming daily, while returning home in the evenings.

• Therapeutic boarding schools – boarding schools with extra therapeutic programming for teens with behavioral, mental health or addiction issues - Generally 6 months to 1 year at minimum in duration.

• Teen drug rehabs – short duration (1 – 3 month) residential addiction treatment program that will provide intensive counseling and education as well as some degree of academics

• Hospital inpatient addiction treatment – this is the most intensive level of care. It is generally reserved for those with a need for a medical detox or for those with co-occurring medical or mental health conditions that complicate the delivery of care. Adolescents in an inpatient treatment program will generally step-down to a residential program as soon as they are stabilized and ready to do so.

• Recovery high schools – community high schools that offer a supportive environment to adolescents in recovery from addiction.

Only about 10% of teens that need addiction treatment get it – and most of the 90% that never get help would respond very well to minimally intrusive outpatient treatment.

Because teens are less likely to come into treatment with a lengthy history of abuse or with severe physical dependencies, many teens are good candidates for outpatient treatment – especially as a first treatment attempt and especially with complete family involvement in the process.

In some cases, however, residential adolescent treatment is a better fit. Teens that are most likely to benefit more from a residential experience include:

• Teens with a co-occurring mental health or behavioral disorder
• Teens likely to commit crimes in a community setting
• Teens that have attempted outpatient treatment previously without success
• Teens without a stable, supportive or sober home environment
• Teens that need medical support or that need a medically supervised detox

Boot Camps for Troubled Teens?

Parents struggling with an out-of-control teen are often desperate to find a solution – and boot camps nationwide claim to have the answers that parents are looking for – but do boot camps work?

Boot camps, which use physical confrontation, extreme discipline and rigorous exercise to ‘tear down’ teens so that they can be ‘built back up’ - promising to instill respect for authority and obedience to rules of behavior.

In reality, you’d be just as well sending your teen to jail…literally. Independent studies have shown that teens sent to boot camps for negative behaviors or crime have equal or higher recidivism rates to teens sent to juvenile incarceration facilities!

Additionally, by sending your teen to an environment of physical confrontation and ‘extreme’ discipline, you may put your loved one in harms way – a worrying number of teens have died while in boot camp programs.

Instead of extreme discipline as the answer – look for a licensed treatment program that offers:

• Family involvement in the process
• Trained counselors
• Intensive therapies 
• Firm but not overly punitive discipline

Although marijuana, when smoked by adults and in moderation is a fairly benign substance, adolescents who use marijuana heavily are at risk of serious health, intellectual and, in some cases, legal consequences.

About 1 in 10 people who smoke marijuana will become dependent on the drug – and since almost half of all high school seniors admit to having tried marijuana, even 10% of these teens equates to a massive number of kids with marijuana dependency.

According to the Treatment Episode Data Set Report from SAMHSA, in 2008, 61% of teens under the age of 15 receiving substance abuse treatment and 56% of those aged 15-19 reported marijuana as their primary drug of abuse. ¹

The consequences of heavy marijuana use by teens can include:

• Cognitive declines – research shows that marijuana impairs the ability to consolidate memories for 24 hours after use – which for a daily smoker means that cognitive capacities are continually impaired. This could account for the fact that heavy marijuana smokers are less likely to finish high school and get lower grades in college than non smokers.
• Developmental problems –The adolescent period is a time of great social-emotional learning. Marijuana use temporarily blunts normal emotional and cognitive experience and so heavy marijuana smokers may not have adequate opportunity to learn and practice the psychosocial skills necessary to adulthood. Teens that are always high may be slower to learn how to act appropriately (socially and emotionally) as adults; and the younger a teen starts using marijuana, the greater the developmental delay..
• An increased risk of mental illness – heavy marijuana use is associated with an accelerated age of onset for psychotic disorders for people already predisposed to such conditions.

College Binge Drinking Stats

• Alcohol remains an unfortunate part of the university experience, and too many students every year pay an overly high price for their youthful experimentation.
  
• Alcohol is involved in the deaths of 1700 college students each year. Almost 600 000 students are injured each year while drunk.
• Almost 700 000 students are assaulted by another student who had been drinking each year
• 31% of college students meet the diagnostic criteria for alcohol abuse
• A quarter of college students say that their alcohol use negatively affects their academic performance
• Students aged 18-24 are far more likely to binge drink than non students from the same age group²