From a study of thousands of adolescent opiate users we learn the 11 most common reasons why teens abuse pain pills. Ultimately it all comes down to easy availability and misperceptions about consequences and safety.

Few parents ever foresee heroin addiction for their adolescent/young adult children but it happens all the time.

By the teen years, adolescents already understand the risks of drugs like heroin – no 12 year old dreams of sticking a needle in his arm - so how do good kids make such bad choices along the way?

Well, in truth, there are a lot of factors that influence a person’s likelihood of drug experimentation and addiction (trauma history, availability, parental attitudes, etc.) but there’s no doubt that for many kids, the path to heroin addiction begins at the family medicine cabinet before winding down a progressive road to a terrible destination.

Want to know why teens hit the medicine cabinet? Well the best way to find out is by asking – and that’s just what researchers at the Partnership for a Drug-Free America did in their Partnership Attitude Tracking Study of 7216 - 7th to 12th grade opiate (pain-pill) users between 2008 and 2012.

Here’s what they found out…

Top 11 Reasons Why Teens Take Opiate Pills 

A substantial 7216 middle and high school aged adolescents were asked why they abused pain pill – here are the answers they gave:¹

said they used them because they were easy to get from the family medicine cabinet.

claimed use due to easy access ‘available everywhere’.

said they used these pills because of their legality (not illegal like other illicit opiates).

claimed they were easy to get through a friend’s prescription.

used at least in part because they could claim to have a legitimate prescription for the drugs if caught and questioned.

reported low cost as a motivator for use.

perceived pain pills to be safer than other street drugs.

reported less stigma attached to use of pain pills.

reported easy access via the internet.

reported using because of fewer side effects than street drugs.

reported using because parents weren’t as angry if you were caught with pain pills as opposed to street drugs.

Prevention Strategies

If you break these 11 statements down, you can divide all of them into 3 basic categories:

1. Easy availability
2. Less worry about legal issues and other consequences
3. Perceived to be safer and associated with fewer side-effects

So, knowing why teens take with pain pills, here are few ideas for stopping experimentation before it gets started.

1. Reduce Availability

• Know what’s in your family medicine cabinet so you’ll notice if anything goes missing.
• Dispose of expired or no-longer needed medications.
• Ask other family members to do likewise.

2. Be Clear on Consequences

Possession of diverted prescription opiates is a far bigger deal than possession of marijuana, so young people who use pain pills to avoid ‘trouble’ are quite misguided.

• Have an open conversation with your child about state laws on the misuse of scheduled prescription drugs and pass along information on the consequences for possession and distribution (even among friends) of scheduled opiates.
• Also make sure your children understand how seriously you regard pain pill abuse (just as severely as you’d view heroin use) and make any consequences for use of these drugs very clear in advance.

3. Communicate the Dangers

These medications are exceedingly dangerous when abused. In 2008, prescription medication overdoses killed 14 800 people (more than cocaine and heroin combined.) In 2009, prescription drug abuse put almost a half million people in the hospital (475 000 E.R. visits). Make sure your children understand the true risks involved. Just because they come from a pharmacy and not the street doesn’t make these drugs any safer.²

Prevention Starts at Home

Parental actions and attitudes make an enormous difference – though adolescents may seem oblivious to parental efforts, your words and deeds matter most of all.

Consider that after reviewing data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, researchers found that teens who did not abuse opiates were more likely to report having parents who:³

• Offered regular appropriate praise.
• Checked their homework frequently and stayed involved with academics.
• Made their strong disapproval of marijuana use very clear. 

Stay involved, keep communication open and praise your son or daughter for all the good they do and you do a lot to keep your children safe from these serious and all-too-commonly abused drugs.

Image Copyright: Dmitris Papazi-Mouris

There comes a time for each of us when we reflect on our lifestyle and see that it's time for a change. The New Year is the most popular time of year to do this. Start out 2014 by considering whether partying still matches the life you want today.

For most young people, there’s a time in which high risk behaviors like binge drinking and experimenting with drugs constitute rites of passage in our society. I find limited value in discouraging these endeavors and instead encourage the young adults I work with to take precautions to remain as safe as possible. Many of them experience losses and this forces a change in both their perspective and behavior. For those fortunate enough to emerge relatively unscathed, there comes a time in which we realize that there are costs to the lifestyle we’re living.

When we reflect, there’s an awareness that our productivity is low, the physical and financial costs are high, and we realize that we’re just bored with the repetition of the same people, places, and substances. I laugh every time a twenty-something incredulously tells me, “It’s just not fun anymore!” It’s natural to outgrow youthful indiscretions. Most of us continue to party in the expectation that the fun will return. We try new bars, date new people, mix up the routine, only to find it’s still not working.

“Man, I’m just tired and bored with myself.” – Bruce Springsteen “Dancing in the Dark”

The choice that many make is to simply go to the next level. We might feel better if we stop drinking cheap beer and favor top shelf liquors or become a wine aficionado. If abusing ADHD medication gets old, try cocaine. If snorting Vicodin gets dull we try smoking Percoset. Maybe we try heroin… just once. It’s easier to cross the lines we swore we’d never cross when it all feels empty and unsatisfying. The costs here become harder to ignore and we can’t feel good about choosing them in the full light of day.

In addiction terms, “chasing the dragon” is the ongoing attempt to duplicate the first (and usually best) high. In life terms, continuing to party when it’s less than satisfying is an exercise in futility. Ambivalence is the point where we want a better outcome but we don’t want to make the changes and do the work to get it.

Willingness is the key of any successful undertaking. I ask folks what they’re prepared to do to tip the scales. When denial is no longer an option we’re confronted with our unhappiness. Even small changes in perspective can yield large rewards.

Steps to Overcoming Ambivalence

Party Sober

I encourage folks to try an experiment. Go to the next party with something that looks like alcohol but isn’t. Observe the people you call friends. Notice how their behavior changes over the course of the evening. It’s likely you’ll see a lot of things you find tedious and perhaps a few that you find disturbing. If you find something intolerable sober, why would you want to engage in it under the influence?

Do a Cost/Benefit Analysis

Nearly everyone has made a list of pros and cons at some point in their lives. It’s a tool for decision making when things seem unclear. Our thoughts tend to be circular. We gain clarity when we externalize our dilemmas by putting them on paper or on a screen. We find that they appear very different there.

“Everything looks worse in black and white.” Paul Simon – “Kodachrome”

I encourage my clients to do a cost/benefit analysis. I ask them to write out what drinking and/or drugging has cost them and what it’s given them in return. Below are the most common responses I receive.

Pros:

• Good times with friends
• Makes my family more fun/tolerable
• Easier to relax
• “Liquid courage”

Cons:

• Financial costs of alcohol & drugs
• Hangovers
• Possible or actual arrests, fines, losses
• DUI/OUI
• Weight Gain
• Lost time at work
• Risk of dependence, addiction
• Loss of romantic relationships
• Stress of having enough on hand
• Other losses: friends harmed while drinking/using

After making your own list, consider not only whether the cons outweigh the pros, but also, are the pros attainable without substances and what would have to change to attain them? What I find is that people generally only make major life changes in two scenarios: They either seek a clear and compelling reward, or they are sufficiently sick and tired of the cost of status quo.

Additional Reality Checks

When was the last time you had a really good time drinking/using? What made it good? Can it not be replicated without drugs and alcohol? Chances are by the time questions like these are hard to answer, your days of “Y.O.L.O.” are gone.

What if “You Only Live Once” means we should be pursuing the career, family, or working toward our dreams? What if partying is just something we do because it’s easy and less scary than recognizing and actualizing our potential?

“Life is what happens while you’re making other plans.” – John Lennon 

Nobody ever sets out in life to become a “townie.” These are the people who stay in their hometowns and settle for small little lives. Nobody plans on becoming an addict. Make some plans.

Budget Everything

• What could you do with the amount of money you spend monthly on drugs and alcohol?
• What could you do with the time you invest in partying?
• What could you do with improved amounts of energy and a healthier body?
• What connections could you be making with people who are pursuing their ambition and how could these benefit you?

I’ve never met a person who regretted abstinence or reduction. I’ve known hundreds who regret not stopping sooner. Investment in self always pays off.

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The more time your teen has for 'hanging out', the greater the odds of trouble. Head-off problems by swapping out some of that free time for time spent engaged in constructive activities. Here are some ideas to get you started.

Adolescents with too much unstructured and unsupervised free time get into more trouble than teens engaged in more constructive pursuits.¹

So replace hanging-out time with more worthwhile activities and with this simple move protect your son or daughter from the risks of drug and alcohol use and abuse.

Of course no single parenting action safeguards against teen drug use, but encouraging constructive use of time should be one key component of your comprehensive prevention strategy.

OK, but if they’re not just hanging out…what will they be doing!??

Here are some ideas for getting started.

Enforcing Constructive Time

For almost 30 years, the social science research group The Search Institute has championed the use of 'developmental assets' as an effective way to improve a young person’s odds of health and happiness into adulthood.²

• Developmental assets are simple interventions that are research-proven to help young people succeed.

You can incorporate some of these developmental assets into your child’s routine by taking a look at his or her use of time, and encouraging constructive behaviors at the expense of non-productive and potentially harmful activities…for example, like just hanging out at the mall.

Encourage Creative Activities

Encourage your child to spend 3 or more hours per week engaged in some form of creative activity, for example:

• Music
• Dance
• Drama
• Writing/poetry
• Crafting
• Gardening/landscaping
• Home woodworking
• Many more!

It doesn’t take much - at minimum, for example, it’s just an hour of guitar lessons a week and 20 minutes a day of practice – or one afternoon a week with a local theater group.

Encourage Group Extracurricular Activities

Encourage at least 3 hours a week spent in after-school, evening or weekend extracurricular group activities, for example:

• On sports teams
• With scouts or other similar youth organizations
• A part-time job
• A volunteer position

Encourage Spiritual Activities

Encourage at least 1 hour a week engaged in some sort of personally relevant spiritual or religious activity, for example:

• Attending church or participating in church youth-group activities
• Meditation practice

Encourage Quality Time at Home

Limit unstructured time with friends to 2 evenings per week (this doesn’t mean that he or she has to be home the other 5 nights a week, but at least 5 nights should center around constructive activities.)

Make family time quality time by:

• Limiting the amount of time your children – and you – spend glued to TV, tablet or computer screens while at home together.
• Make shared family meals – where you all sit and eat together without distractions – a priority.
• Engage in whole-family activities whenever possible, such as family walks or games.

Encourage Homework Time

Your son or daughter should spend at least an hour a day outside of school engaged in homework.

Encourage Reading for Pleasure

Encourage your son or daughter to read for pleasure at least 3 hours per week. If your child is not currently an enthusiastic reader, you can help stimulate their interest with family trips to the library or book-shops.

Encourage Service Time

Encourage your son or daughter to spend at least 1 hour per week engaged in the altruistic service of others.

For example:

• Help an elderly neighbor with yard-work.
• Volunteer on the school-dance committee.
• Get involved with a community organization.

Expect to face some resistance as you carve away free-time for more productive pursuits – after all, teens like to hang out and they tend to enjoy the company of friends over mom and dad!

So be understanding, don’t take rejection personally and don’t change everything overnight. Talk about what you want to accomplish, explain your motivations and negotiate gradual changes that everyone can live with.

Image Copyright: B erta

Although there are no guarantees, teens who grow up exposed to a significant number of protective factors (such as having loving and effective parents, doing well in school etc.) are far less likely to use drugs than teens who grow up exposed to many risk factors (early aggression, having peers who use drugs or alcohol, having a parent with a substance abuse problem or mental illness and others). Fortunately, parents can do a lot to increase the protective factors while decreasing the risk factors!

Growing up, some of us are at greater risk to use drugs and alcohol than others. Scientists say that while growing up, we get exposed to things that reduce our odds of getting involved with drugs or alcohol (protective factors) or things that increase the likelihood that we will, as teens, use drug and alcohol (risk factors).

While there are no guarantees in life (and especially in parenting!) research shows that on average, teens who grow up exposed to greater numbers of risk factors are more likely to use drugs and alcohol and to use them at younger ages – and that teens exposed to greater numbers of protective factors are less likely to get involved with drugs and drinking.

Keeping naturally sensation seeking teens away from drug and alcohol experimentation is a tough job for a lot of parents, and in some cases, no matter what you do, your teen will still decide to use or abuse drugs or alcohol; but the good news here is that many of these risk and protective factors are quite controllable, and that you can do a lot to reduce the risks!

Risk Factors (Things That Increase the Odds of Teen Drug and Alcohol Use)

Some people grow up exposed to a slew of risk factors and yet never have a problem with drugs or alcohol, but on average, the greater the number of risk factors, the greater the odds of teen drug and/or alcohol use or abuse.

Risk Factors

• Growing up in a home where one parent abuses drugs or alcohol or one parent suffers from a mental illness
• Having a poor attachment bond with parents (parents do not display love or nurturing behaviors to children)
• Having ineffective parents (parents unable to effectively discipline, monitor behavior and or teach appropriate behavior)
• Performing poorly at school
• Hanging around with friends who use drugs or alcohol or otherwise display deviant behaviors
• Showing early aggression, or being excessively shy in the classroom
• Having poor social skills
• Growing up in a family or community that accepts drug or alcohol use as normal and accepted behavior
• Growing up in a community with easy drug or alcohol availability¹

Protective Factors (Things That Reduce a Person’s Risk for Drug Abuse)

While parents may sometimes feel powerless to keep adolescent children safe, research shows that loving and effective parenting makes a great deal of difference.

Protective Factors

• Having parents that closely monitor the activities of their children and get involved in their lives
• Having a strong attachment bond with parents and other members of the family
• Having parents who maintain effective discipline in the home
• Success at school (ability in math, reading – also commitment to school performance and attachment to teachers at school)²
• Involvement in school or extracurricular associations
• Disapproving of drug use ³
• Having parents that expect their children to go to college and that think a college education is important

Many of these protective factors have been shown to also ’protect’  against risky sexual activities, teen pregnancy, violent behaviors, school drop out and other forms of delinquent acts.

Research Support for Protective Factors

Numerous studies have linked risk and protective factors to variable odds of drug and alcohol use and abuse.

In one study, researchers followed 1000 youths growing up in Rochester New York from grade 7 to grade 11 or 12. All youths were from disadvantaged homes and all were considered ‘high risk’ youths for future drug use.

The researchers measured (counted) protective and risk factors for each study subject and followed up over the years to test for drug use.

They found that:

• Among teens that had very minimal protective factors (between 0 and 3) only 32% remained drug free within a year from grade 8 and only 20% remained drug free after three years.

• Among teens who had substantial protective factors (6 or more) 86% remained drug free a year after initial testing in grade 8 and 56% remained drug free after 3 years.⁴

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Kids and teens left unsupervised in the hours between the end of school and dinner are far more likely to get into trouble with drugs and alcohol. Read the research findings that paint a scary picture of the consequences of too much unstructured time.

Want to keep your kids happy and healthy through the teen years? Then keep a close eye on things during those dangerous hours between 3 and 6.

Once children reach middle school age and are at last old and responsible enough to be left for a few hours after school unsurprised – they are also, unfortunately, old enough to start getting themselves in trouble; and research shows pretty clearly that kids who are left to their own devices for the majority of the after school period are a whole lot more likely to get into trouble with drugs and alcohol and other negative behaviors.

Not convinced? Take a look at some research findings which illustrate the dangers of the after school period:

A study of youth in 17 school districts in Ohio shows that teens who participate in after school extracurricular activities are far less likely to use drug or alcohol than teens who do not participate ¹

A Southern California study of almost 4000 middle school students found that those who were left unsupervised during the after school hours are far more likely than those who had supervision to use drug or alcohol, experience depression and do poorly in school.²

A study on American middle school kids found that eighth graders who spent 11 or more hours unsupervised each afternoon were twice as likely to use drugs or alcohol as kids who were more supervised.³

A major US Dept. Of Health and Human Services study found that even a few hours of adult supervised leisure time per week makes a huge difference. Students who spent no time in supervised after school activities were 40% more likely to use drugs or alcohol than teens that spent just 4 hours a week in supervised after school activities. Students who engaged in no supervised after school activities were also 57% more likely to drop out prior to finishing high school.⁴

You can’t always be there to watch them, but kids left on their own after school tend to get into trouble. If you can’t be there, encourage healthy developmental activities like music, clubs or sports for the after school hours.

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Teens who believe that their teachers and peers at school care about them and want them to succeed are less likely to use drugs and alcohol, less likely to get into trouble with violence or the law and more likely to finish school (with higher grades)! Find out why school connectedness matters and learn what you can do to increase your son or daughter’s feelings of school connectedness.

Parents play an enormous role in keeping teen children safe from drug and alcohol abuse, but teen children are also tremendously influenced by their peers, and by other concerned adults in their lives.

Since school aged teens spend much of their time in school, it’s not surprising then that educators, school culture and school ‘effectiveness’ also have significant influence on a teen’s likelihood to get into trouble.

In fact, students who describe themselves as ‘connected’ to their schools, are not only less likely to abuse drugs and alcohol, smoke cigarettes, become violent or become sexually active at an early age - they’re also more likely to stay in school for longer and get better grades while they’re there! They are also at reduced risk of experiencing a mood disorder or an eating disorder.¹

Parents and home life play central role in child rearing, but schools also clearly matter – and since school connectedness is so important, it’s worth considering a few techniques that are proven to enhance this sense of connection between your children and their school.

What Is School Connectedness?

Children who experience school connectedness believe that peers and adults at school care about their happiness and success in school and in life.

How Can Parents Enhance The Feeling of School Connectedness?

According to the CDC, some steps parents can take to enhance the likelihood a child or teen feels connected with their school include:

• Be an involved parent at school.
  
• Make sure to read all information that comes home and attend school and PTA meetings whenever possible.
• Talk to teachers at your school and try to find out what your child should be doing and learning – and then help your child at home to keep them up to date with their work
  
• Help your child with his or her homework – and make sure that he or she has the tools needed to succeed such as school supplies and a quiet space at home that’s conducive to work and study
  
• Learn the rules and expectation of the school and make sure your child follows these rules
  
• If your first language is not English, make sure that the school translates all information for you, or that you have access to another readily available source for translations,
  
• Talk frequently, even informally, with your child’s teachers, to find out how things are going in the classroom on an everyday basis
  
• If you can, volunteer your time at the school, helping to improve the overall quality of the educational experience as you also stay connected with the school and with your children.
  
• Encourage your child to feel free to tell you and other concerned adults at and beyond school about problems and challenges faced within the school
  
• Encourage your son or daughter to get fully involved in extracurricular activities at the school – and if you can, support these activities with your own presence, or expertise, such as through coaching or mentoring.²
  

By making sure your child is capable and up to date with work and living up to expectations at school you put your teen in a great position for academic success; and by staying informed with school goings-on and getting involved if you can and encouraging participation in extracurricular activities, you help your child get the most benefit out of the community that is every school – and the more connected they get and feel, the less likely they are to get into serious trouble!

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Adolescents are burdened with a still developing brain that’s uniquely at risk to alcohol overexposure - but that still developing brain is also very attracted to experimentation and thrill seeking, it isn’t as affected by the negatives of alcohol (teens don’t get as sleepy when drinking or as hung over after the fact) and it isn’t as capable of higher order decision making. All in all, it’s a bad combination and because of this, parental prevention efforts are very important. Parents who can prevent underage alcohol abuse can prevent developmental brain damage.

While it may not seem like you have much control over the behaviors of your teen children, research shows that parents have a lot more influence than they realize and that what parents say and do has a powerful influence over a teen’s likelihood to get involved with drugs of alcohol.

And this is important, because not only are teens that start drinking at a younger age far more likely to develop later in like alcohol problems – alcohol is also uniquely damaging to the still developing teen mind – and heavy drinking in adolescence can lead to permanent brain damage that can affect quality of life and cognitive abilities long after teen partying comes to an end.

Teens who start drinking before the age of 15 are 4 times more likely to become alcohol dependent at some point in life.¹

Unfortunately, although the teen brain is at greater risk to alcohol caused damage, because the brain is still in development, teens are also uniquely attracted to what alcohol has to offer.

Read on to learn more about why adolescent brain development increases the odds of binge drinking and what consequences heavy drinking during adolescence can have on eventual brain development.

How Brain Development Increases the Risks of Heavy Drinking

The Adolescent Brain: Increased Risk of Brain Damage and Developmental Changes that Support Heavy Drinking - A Bad Combination

Teens don’t always make smart choices, and in some cases, like when making choices about drinking, incomplete brain development plays a role in influencing behaviors.For example:

The limbic system in the brain (responsible for regulating emotions and pleasure) develops faster than the frontal lobes, which handle higher order tasks like reasoning, decision making and impulse control. This varying rate of development increases an adolescent’s desire for novelty and excitement as it also decreases her aversion to risk and her ability to gauge the likely consequences of a given action. 

Alcohol affects teen brains differently. Teens that binge drinks are less likely to feel drowsy and typically experience less loss of coordination than adult drinkers. Significantly, adolescents also typically experience milder hangovers than adult drinkers. Getting sleepy and worrying about feeling hung-over the next day are 2 factors that reduce the amount an adult may choose to drink in a session which may not have much influence in reducing an adolescent’s alcohol consumption. 

Adolescents are also more likely to perceive a benefit in how alcohol affects social interactions (social lubrication) ²

The Consequences of Heavy Drinking on Brain Development

The adolescent years are a time of significant brain development and social and heavy alcohol use during this vital developmental stage can lead to enduring cognitive consequences, for example:

In one study of alcohol dependent 15 and 16 year olds, teens who had become addicted to alcohol performed significantly worse on tests that measured short term memory (they were less able to remember a serious of words or shapes 10 minutes after being shown a list or picture and asked to remember as many as possible)

Animal studies show that heavy alcohol exposure in adolescence can lead to memory problems that persist into adulthood, long after any drinking stops.

Brain imagery studies on alcohol dependent 17 year olds show that heavy alcohol use during this developmental stage influences brain growth in ways that can be seen visually. In brain scans, the hippocampuses of alcohol dependent teens were noticeably smaller than those of teens who did not abuse alcohol. The hippocampus is a primary center for memory formation and retention in the brain.³

Prevention Efforts Are Vital

Teens have it rough. Although their brains are hard wired to seek out excitement and novelty and although they are uniquely able to enjoy the pleasures of alcohol without experiencing some of the adverse effects, their brains are also still in such rapid development that the frequent use of alcohol can cause some lasting memory and cognitive impairments.

So it really comes down to parents - and to a lesser extent to schools and to the community as a whole. We cannot expect adolescents to make the right choices (their brains will hardly let them) so we must guide them to better decisions and monitor their activities to such an extent that we limit the repercussions of their harmful choices.

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Parents who send a clear message to their kids about the unacceptability of underage drinking have kids that are less likely to get into trouble with alcohol – but sending a clear message about drinking doesn’t begin and end with a single conversation, rather it takes both word and deed and particularly, the setting of a positive example in your own life. Want your kids to steer clear of underage drinking? Here are 7 ways to send the right message in your home.

Research shows that parents who talk to their children about alcohol and who send clear messages in word and deed about the unacceptability of underage and excessive drinking rear children who go on to have fewer problems with alcohol.¹

Don’t assume that your kids know where you stand on underage drinking, make your family’s no-drinking policy crystal clear to everyone in the house – and make sure that everyone knows the consequences for infractions against this policy. Remember also that your children model your behaviors and attitudes as much (or more) as they listen to your words – so if you don’t practice what you preach you send your children contradictory messages about alcohol, and increase their risks of getting started at a young age.

Here are 7 great ways to make sure your kids get a message on alcohol that’s going to keep them happy and safe and minimize their risks of substance abuse problems (as recommended by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA).

7 Ways to Send the RIGHT Message about Alcohol Use

1. Talk to your children about the unacceptability of underage drinking. Make sure your children know that no underage drinking is tolerable and make sure that everyone in the household knows the consequences for infractions – and make sure to follow through with any threatened disciplinary action.
2. Teach your kids that underage drinking is dangerous, that it can increase their risks of becoming an alcoholic later in life and that overdosing on alcohol can lead to death.
3. Teach your kids that underage drinking is against the law and that underage drinkers caught by the police can face legal consequences.
4. Teach your children to have fun without the use of alcohol.
5. Set a good example: don’t drink to excess in front of your children and never drive while intoxicated.
6. Don’t glamorize drinking through ‘war stories’ of your own wilder days. If you tell your children anything about examples of your own underage drinking, make sure to stress that your actions were wrong and explain the negative consequences of those actions.
7. Keep track of alcohol in your house, especially at any parties thrown by your children.²

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Although as the parent of a teen you may wonder how much influence you have, research shows pretty clearly that what you do (or don’t do) has a huge impact on your teen’s health, happiness, and even choices. Learn which parenting styles reduce the odds of drug and alcohol abuse and which styles increase the risks – and learn how parental monitoring can keep your son or daughter safe from the worst of the dangers.

Parenting teen children is no easy task.

Parental advice and admonishments seem to fall on deaf ears of know-better teens and you can’t help wondering if anything you say or do has much impact on a child who is determined to go her own way!

So what can a parent do to prevent drug and alcohol use and abuse?

Thankfully, though it may seem hard to believe, the experts say that teens are listening a lot more than we may believe and that there are certain parenting strategies that can increase the harmony and satisfaction of the household as they reduce the likelihood that your teen will get into trouble with things like drugs or alcohol.

According to a whole lot of research, to keep your child safe:

1. Be an authoritative parent
2. Know what your kids are up to

First of all then, how can you be an authoritarian parent?

The Four Parenting Styles

The four major parenting styles are:

1. Permissive (Indulgent)
2. Authoritarian
3. Neglectful
4. Authoritative (democratic)

Permissive parents are high on love and affection but low on monitoring and limits and discipline. Permissive parents set few rules or expectations for standards of behavior and rarely discipline effectively.

Authoritarian parents are high on discipline and limits but low on affection and displays of love. Authoritarian parents give orders and do not expect or respond to questioning of those commands.

Neglectful parents are low on love and affection and on limits and discipline. Parental substance abuse can result in parental neglect.

Authoritative parents are sometimes called ‘democratic’ parents, for though the final decisions are the parents to call, all family members are seen as stakeholders who deserve to have input in the decision making process and whose wants and needs merit respect. Authoritative parents are high on both love and affection and on setting appropriate limits and positive discipline.

Effective communication is an important aspect of an authoritative parenting style. Rules and expectations are clearly explained to children and questioning of rules and expectations is met with explanations, rather than - “because I said so!” Authoritative parents also give their teen children room to grow into psychologically autonomous adults by accepting differing and evolving beliefs and opinions, even those that may, from time to time, conflict with the opinions and beliefs of the family as a whole.

Authoritative Parents Are Most Likely to Have Kids that Don’t Get into Trouble with Drugs or Alcohol

Perhaps unsurprisingly, teens in families with authoritative parents are less likely than teens from other types of households to get into trouble with drugs or alcohol. Some research results which prove this point include:

• A study of American middle and high school students which revealed that parents using authoritative parenting techniques were most likely to also engage in techniques proven to reduce the odds of teen drug and alcohol abuse, such as talking about drugs and communicating the family’s expectations about abstinence and high levels of parental monitoring.¹
• A Bingham Young University Binge Drinking Study of 5000 - 12 to 19 year old Americans revealed that kids from authoritative households were half as likely as teens from authoritarian households to binge drink. Teens from households with indulgent parents who were low in discipline and accountability but high on warmth were more than three times as likely to drink as teens from authoritative households. ²
• Researchers studying children from grade 3 to 8 found that children from authoritative homes scored highest on measures of general competency and lowest on intention to smoke and on actual experimentation with tobacco. ³

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While you probably don’t want to see your teen son or daughter drinking alcohol, you may not worry about a few beers as much as you’d worry if you saw evidence of marijuana or even harder drug use. The true risks of those few drinks, however, extends far beyond the risks of alcohol alone – and teens that start drinking at a young age are much more likely to develop alcohol dependency issues as adults. Read on to learn more what increased dangers face those teens who drink alcohol.

As parents, you’d probably like to see your son or daughter abstain from alcohol at least until reaching the legal drinking age of 21. Well, no mater how effective your parenting skills and no matter how great your kids – the statistics say that most teens will have a drink or two before they’re legally supposed to.

However, parents who delay their children from experimenting with alcohol for as long as they can do their children a great service and protect them from a host of additional risks during an already risky developmental stage.

The Increased Risks for Teens that Drink

According to the Community Drug and Alcohol Council (CDAC) some increased risks for teens that use alcohol include:

• An increased risk of alcohol dependence later in life - Teen who start drinking in their early teen years are 4 times more likely to develop an alcohol dependence problem in adulthood than those who wait until the legal minimum age to start drinking

• An increased risk of contracting an STD

• An increased risk for an unplanned pregnancy

• An increased risk to become sexually active at a young age

• An increased risk to be the victim or perpetrator of a violent act

• An increased risk to use illegal drugs and to develop a substance abuse problem

• An increased risk to be involved in a motor vehicle accident

• An increased risk to attempt suicide

• An increased risk of serious school problems
  

As parents, your prevention efforts matter, and although it may seem that your words fall on deaf ears, you remain a huge influence in your children’s lives throughout the adolescent years. Talk to your children about the dangers of drugs and alcohol and make sure your children know your expectations about alcohol abstinence. Be involved in the lives of your teen children and strive to maintain a line of dialogue. Use authoritative parenting styles, involving your children in the decision making process and be sure to set limits – and stick to them!

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While your teen son or daughter might never consider buying heroin or cocaine from a shady street dealer, they’re more likely than you might think to abuse a pretty similar type of drug, and if they’re like most teens abusing prescription medications – they don’t even have to pay for it…getting high is as easy as opening the family medicine cabinet.

Many people underestimate the risks associated with the use of opiates like vicodin or OxyContin or stimulants like Adderall or Ritalin, but the reality is that these prescription medications are very similar in chemical profile, effects and risks to ‘street drugs’ like cocaine or heroin, and by the end of high school, about 1 student in 10 will have abused a prescription opiate to get high and 1 in 5 a prescription drug of some kind.

Prescription drug abuse is a serious problem and recreational prescription drug abuse carries with it a serious risk of addiction, injury and even overdose death.

Learn more about how and what and why teens are abusing and put into practice a couple of very simple strategies to minimize access and temptation in your own home.

The Numbers – How Big Is the Teen Prescription Drug Problem?

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA):

• Almost 1 in 10 high school seniors admit to having abused Vicodin to get high, and almost 1 in 20 admit to having abused OxyContin

• Amongst high school seniors, of the 14 most commonly abused illicit drugs, 8 are prescription medications (In order of use, Vicodin, amphetamines, tranquilizers, cough medicine, Adderall, sedatives, OxyContin, Ritalin). Only marijuana is abused more often than Vicodin.

• 54% of teens who admitted to abusing prescription drugs say they got them for free from a family member or friend.¹

Why are they so easy to find? – In 1991, doctors wrote out 5 million prescriptions for stimulants. By 2009, that number had jumped to 40 million stimulant prescriptions. In 1991, doctors wrote out 45 million prescriptions for opiate pain killers – by 2009, that number had jumped to 180 million prescriptions. With such an increase, it’s no surprise that medicine cabinets coast to coast are filled with a lot of drugs that can get teens high.

Preventing Your Teen from Abusing Prescription Drugs

While you can’t hope to have your eye on a freedom craving adolescent every minute, there are steps you can take to minimize his or her access to strong drugs.

According to The Partnership for a Drug Free America, successful strategies for minimizing your teen’s likelihood of abusing prescription drugs include:

1. Keep Track of Medications

Know what’s in your medicine cabinet and know how many pills a bottle of medication contains, especially medications that teens may seek to abuse, like opiates, stimulants or sedatives. Keep track of your refills, and if you find yourself needing to refill a prescription more often than you’d anticipated; you may have a problem. If your teen son or daughter uses medications like Adderall or pain medications, make sure to control his or her access to these medications. Since teens may have access to medications in the homes of other family members, make sure to also discuss the importance of monitoring medications with other family members.

2. Limit Access to Medications

Lock your medicine cabinet, or hide strong medications where teens won’t find them.

3. Get Rid of Old Unused Medications

Too many of us hang onto unused prescriptions for long after we need them, creating deep stocks of medications for the taking. Throw out any prescription medications that are no longer used.²

While you can't protect your teen from all access and temptation, by reducing access to strong prescription medications in your home and in the homes of other family members, you increase the odds of keeping your son or daughter safe from these very dangerous substances.

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Teens that delay their first experimentation with alcohol until the age of 21 have virtually no risk of ever developing an alcohol abuse problem, but what can parents do to keep these experimentally prone youngsters from trying alcohol? - Researchers say that one of the most important things you can do to keep your children safe is to set a good example in the home and to practice what you preach!

If one or more parents at home drinks heavily, how does this impact the children in the house – specifically, are these kids at greater risk of drinking problems themselves later in life?

Researchers at the National Center on Substance Abuse and Addiction at Columbia University (CASA) do a lot of research on alcohol and the family to be able to answer questions like this. Here are some facts from their 2009 National Survey on American Attitudes on Substance Abuse XIX that show just how affected children are by a parent drinking heavily in the house.

34% of teens questioned said they had seen one or more parents drunk. Compared to teens that had never seen either parent get drunk, these teens were:

• Twice as likely to get drunk in any given month (teens that get drunk monthly are 18 times more likely to also use marijuana than teens who don’t drink)
• Three times more likely to have experimented with marijuana
• Three times more likely to have experimented with smoking cigarettes

It’s fairly clear that we do as parents matters and that when we try to prescribe behaviors to our teens that we do not follow in our own lives, our kids are quick to spot our hypocrisy!

Teens who abstain from drinking until the age of 21 have almost no chance of developing a drinking problem over the course of a lifetime. It seems that if wish our children to steer clear of experimenting with alcohol and drugs we need to set a good example in the home!

It’s also important to expect that your teen son or daughter abstain from drinking and drug use and to make your expectations known to your children

• Teens of parents who believed that some future drug use by their children was very likely were an astounding 10 times more likely to have used marijuana than teens of parents who believed that their children would never use drugs.
• A teen who believes that his or her father condones their drinking is 250% more likely to get drunk in any given month than teens with fathers who do not approve of underage drinking.¹

Practice what you preach and if you drink, drink only in moderation; stay involved in the lives of your children, talk to your children about drugs and alcohol and make sure they know that you do not condone any experimentation with use – if you do these things you do much to keep your kids safe and healthy.

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Heavy drinkers tend to think that other people drink more than they do (myth). If people with such misperceptions get accurate information about how much others in their community are drinking, they are more likely to reduce their overall consumption. Giving people who have incorrect beliefs about a negative behavior accurate information is called social norms marketing – and it is a cheap and effective way to reduce negative behaviors, like binge drinking, across a large population.

Social norms marketing is a prevention techniques that has been used with good results in college settings to reduce the amount of drinking that goes on across all students. Although it is often used to good effect to reduce drinking on college campuses, it can be used to promote healthy behaviors in a number of areas, such as to: promote non smoking, reduce bullying, promote drug abstinence, reduce violence and for any other applications

Social norms marketing works by correcting myths that people may have about how normal or widespread certain behaviors are in the community. ¹

In a survey of Canadian University students it was found that the average student drank only twice a month, but students believed that the average student would drink twice as frequently, at least once a week.²

How "social norms marketing" works:

• If you, as a college student, drink heavily, you probably think that the average student drinks more than they do and that your behaviors are within the normal range (your perceptions may be influenced by your immediate peer group)
• If you are informed of the true amounts average college students are consuming, and how much more than average you are consuming, then you are more likely to reduce your consumption out of the high risk range.

Some examples of the kinds of messages you might see in a social norms campaign include:

• 76% of U of _ Students have 3 or fewer drinks per week.
• Most U of _ Students have 4 or fewer drinks when they go out to party³

How Well Does Social Norms Marketing Work?

• A study on student athletes exposed to social norms messaging about alcohol use found that after 1 year exposure to accurate information, binge drinking amongst these athletes dropped by 30 percent and the negative consequences experienced as a result of drinking dropped by 34%. ⁴
• A social norms campaign at Florida State University is credited with reducing high risk drinking amongst male students by 15%⁵

Social Norms Marketing is a relatively cheap way to influence a change in behavior across a large population of at risk people.

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The earlier any intervention or treatment ensues, the better the eventual prognosis, and the less intensive the intervention needs to be. It's always better to act sooner rather than later, and drug and alcohol abuse prevention works very well when specific brief intervention strategies are used on people at risk to progress from risky use behaviors to addiction.

Drug abuse prevention…a few words from a trusted authority figure can go a long way

Once heavy or binge drug or alcohol use becomes dependency, the intensity of therapy needed increases exponentially, and some people can never seem to overcome addiction. It's far better to prevent the occurrence of an addiction, and research has shown that a brief intervention with a trusted authority figure before addiction has emerged can be a very effective way to encourage a reduction in risky use behaviors.

The intervention can be very brief and casual, and may occur only once, with a possible follow up phone call or email…basically, a very minimally disruptive treatment to drug or alcohol abuse.

A brief preventative intervention is simply a conversation with a position in authority, ideally known and trusted, about the dangers of abuse and the benefits of reducing consumption. Often resource and reading materials are given, and there should ideally be some follow up to check on progress in the weeks and months after the intervention.

Physicians, counselors, human resource personnel and others are in a unique position as known and trusted authority figures to enact behavioral change, at minimal cost and with minimal disruption.

Teens who start drinking before the age of 15, in addition to potentially damaging the still developing body and mind, are 5 times more likely to develop problems with alcohol later in life; and when you consider that more than a quarter of all high school kids report having their first real drink prior to the age of 13…we all still have out work cut out for us.

Addiction and drug abuse prevention begins in the home within the family, and although parents rightly believe that peer pressure and the influence of friends exerts a powerful force during the teenage years, kids who don’t drink or use drugs cite their parents' influence as the number one factor leading them away from early abuse. Contrarily, the number one factor influencing kids that do abuse drugs and alcohol is the perception of permissive or lenient parenting styles.

Sometimes parents do everything they can towards drug abuse prevention and ultimately end up heartbroken as their child succumbs to abuse and addiction, and some parents who make no effort in prevention have children that excel without ever experimenting with use and abuse; there are no guarantees in life and especially when parenting an adolescent, but parents do exert a major influence, and prevention always starts in the home.