Substance Abuse among Teenagers - Research Paper Example

Substance Abuse among Teenagers Drug abuse is a significant concern for people of all ages, such that families and countries commit large amounts ofresources to support and treat people suffering from the aftereffects of drug abuse. Many drugs can be abused, including legal and illegal drugs, and other substances that are not classified as drugs but have psychotic effects on the body. Legal drugs include prescription, non-prescription and over-the-counter drugs that are normally used to treat, control or prevent common ailments, also referred to as medicines. Other legal non-medicinal drugs used as stimulants and depressants so that individuals can achieve certain states of mind include tobacco, coffee and alcohol among others. Illegal drugs include hard drugs like cocaine, heroin and marijuana among others, and using them is against the law and attracts long jail sentences and fines (Alegmano, 2009). People abuse drugs for various reasons, which include using drugs to enhance the good feelings a person already has, or using drugs to overcome life hardships like family, school, economic and social challenges. Drug abuse is especially harmful to a teenager since one is at an extremely significant developmental stage in life, where one is forming an identity for self by defining a suitable niche in society. At this age, a person is confused about the way life is turning out and drugs offer a refuge from the stresses of having many changes occurring physically, psychologically and socially. Development requires that a teenager experiences life soberly so that the lessons acquired can be applied effectively to one’s adult life. However, dependency on drugs hampers development since the youth is unavailable to experience the pleasures and pains of growing up. Teenagers mostly start abusing drugs out of curiosity aiming to make sense of their environment, and in their quest, they end up abusing drugs. However, trying out drugs would not be that harmful if the drugs were not addictive; since the teenagers would abandon the drugs if they so felt. Drugs produce changes in a teenager’s body that causes one’s body to desire the drug again to get the feeling, a process known as addiction; which is the hurdle that counselors have to overcome as they seek to free teenagers from drug abuse. This report aims to study the effects of drug abuse on teenagers, predisposing factors, and finally recommend an approach that a counselor should take when dealing with a case of teenage drug abuse. Statement of the Problem The main cause of concern for psychologists is that parents believe its okay for their teenage children to take alcohol since it is not classified as one of the hard drugs, and they fail to recognize the fact that alcohol results in 5 times as many teenage deaths than all other drugs combined. Alcohol causes these deaths mainly through road accidents, and it predisposes teenagers to use of other drugs, usually with devastating results. However, alcohol is the most abused drug among teenagers with over 30 percent using it by 8th grade, 45 percent by 10th grade, and 55 percent by 12th grade. In addition, over $60 billion is lost annually on underage drinking. Drug abuse results in poor performance and school dropouts, and strains family relationships since children who abuse drugs want to interact with their parents less frequently. The situation is made worse owing to the fact that parents are quite busy working to pay bills and, therefore, fail to recognize changes in their children at an early stage. Hence they wait until it is too late to start corrective measures. Therefore, it is necessary for a psychiatrist to consider all these factors when dealing with cases of drug abuse, such that one should use the most effective approach for each case since there is likelihood that the teenager has been using the drugs for some time without any adult noticing. The psychologist should use personalized treatment for each case since cases are not homogenous due to many underlying factors like genetic predisposition, amount of drug taken and the period that the drug has been abused among other factors (Cordaro et al., 2011). Relevance to Adolescence Development Exposure to life challenges that are beyond their capacity, as young people may cause teenagers to skip the developmental stage by turning to drugs as an aid to handle difficult life situations. For instance, teenage pregnancy is among the main factors that result in drug abuse among teenagers, resulting in wastage of young lives to disease and suicide. Drug abuse hinders cognitive, social and cultural development of a teenager, resulting in adults who are poorly prepared to deal with the challenges of life (Genna, Cornelius and Donovan, 2009). Cognitive ability is acquired by obtaining knowledge from school and other environments and combining this knowledge in decision making, and solving daily problems. However, when on drugs a teenager cannot think clearly, and misses the learning that comes from critical thinking and reasoning out situations. For instance, drug abuse hinders the rapid development that should occur in a teenage brain structure and functions; and theoretical perspectives including constructivist and information-processing perspective. In addition, drug abuse hinders development of other cognitive functions like attention, memory, processing speed, organization and metacognition (Haddad et al., 2010). Drug abuse affects a teenager’s social life, such that one loses interest in favorite activities since all one can think of is drugs, and a youth ends up without hobbies that enable them to have a holistic existence. In addition, a person no longer associates with friends who are not into drugs, and avoids interactions with family members in an attempt to hide the drug problem. The teenager interacts only with peers with whom one can identify, such that a teen only associates with friends who share the drug abusing tendencies; these friends are usually the ones that pressurize a teen into using drugs. This mainly results from the stigmata associated with the use of drugs, since the society in a way makes a person dependent on drugs to feel remorseful about self. In addition, drug abuse results in loss of self-esteem as one feels that life is not worth living and one is being looked down upon (Mason et al., 2009). Because of psychological changes resulting from drug abuse, a person loses identity and cannot develop culturally. For instance, drugs prevent a person from associating with family and friends in culturally acceptable ways. Instead of identifying with positive cultural practices, a teenager on drugs associates with deviant groups who participate in dubious activities. Drug abuse also hinders a person’s self-identity in terms of sexuality, such that a teenager behaves in unacceptable manner while with people of their age or gender. In addition, drug abuse results in wastage of time that should be used for other productive tasks like classwork, helping at home and income generating activities (Mason et al., 2009). A Counselors Approach A counselor should consider all underlying factors before embarking on a treatment regimen for a teenager drug user, including but not limited to beliefs, the drug itself, the time the behavior has prevailed, the amount of drug taken, role of family, peer pressure and epidemiology. People believe that it is easy to stop drugs, and all it takes is freewill; however, soon the truth is revealed when a person tries and fails, usually when it is too late. In addition, there is a common belief that some drugs are more harmful than others, and so people rarely seek help for the soft drugs; little do they know that this is what makes these soft drugs considerably destructive than the hard drugs. Therefore, a counselor should consider family and individual beliefs of the teenager, such that one can estimate the length of time and the damage that the drug will have done on the youth (Haddad et al., 2010). Other factors that affect the treatment route are drug characteristics, including the drug type, form, amount and the length of time the teenager has been abusing the drug. Some drugs, for instance, heroin, are so potent that a person may get an addiction for using it on relatively few occasions, while others like marijuana may require a person to consume for extended periods before addiction occurs. Drugs taken in their concentrated forms are more potent; for instance, smoked tobacco exposes a person to higher doses of nicotine than chewed tobacco, and the counselor should consider the route used by the teenager when taking the drugs. Finally, the counselor should consider the dosage of the drug that the teenager may have consumed by considering the quantity and length of time that the habit has prevailed (Haddad et al., 2010). Family also has a role to play in the addiction and treatment process, and the counselor should identify family related factors that may have resulted in and sustained the drug abusing habit. Interactions among family members should be an indicator of strained relationships that could have led the teenager to seek refuge in drugs. Whichever the case, the family can take a fundamental position in the recovery process, especially when the counselor intends to use the teenager’s family as a tool to prevent the teenager from turning back to drugs. In this case, the counselor uses family members as a recovery support team, a strategy that has been proven highly effective if other family members cooperate (Mason et al., 2009). Peer pressure is the other factor that the counselor should identify, mainly because the teenager will copy the habits of friends and go back to using drugs. However, this should not be used to gag a teenager's social life, the counselor should advise the youth to get a hobby or an activity that they enjoy; which is an approach that enables the teenager to get new friends with beneficial tendencies. These new friends act to reinforce the newly acquired habits that act to replace the drug abuse habits, and aid in recovery from addiction (Sussman, Skara, and Ames, 2008). Finally, the counselor should examine the epidemiology of the addiction, which includes predisposing factors like genetic factors, and social and environmental risk factors. Research has indicated that some people have a higher propensity to drug abuse and addiction brought about by their genetic makeup; and some teenagers may have more difficulty in stopping drug addiction than others. The society and environment where a person has grown up may cause them to abuse drugs, making attempts to stop the habit a futile effort. The reason is that the teenager will just go back to the old habits; a counselor should recommend a change of environment (Schulden, Thomas and Compton, 2009). Conclusion Drug abuse is a global pandemic and every parent or guardian should be concerned as teenagers are at high risk of falling into drug abuse, mainly due to the psychological and physiological changes their bodies are undergoing. Drug abuse hinders effective development of teenagers such that they grow into adults without having developed the knowledge and techniques of dealing with the challenges of adult life. A counselor dealing with a case of drug abuse should consider underlying factors before picking a treatment regimen for a teenager, as teenagers are heterogeneous and each requires a different approach for effective treatment. References Alemagno, S. A., Stephens, P., King, S. 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