The effective treatment of adolescents with substance abuse and behavioral disorders requires an approach that includes attention to every aspect of a young person’s life. We see every individual as a whole being. In addition to fully understanding the emotional, developmental, physical, psychological, familial, social and cultural factors, there must be appropriate resources in place to address these issues.
Secrets Untold - Addicted Teens Share Their Secrets
Every teenager has secrets that they keep from their parents. No matter how hard parents try to have open communication with their kids, there are some secrets that are untold. I recently looked up this topic on the Internet and found an audio snippet on NPR on the subject (“Teens Share Their Secrets”). I have also added some of my own secrets from working with teens and from my own personal experience.
Some of the revealing things that teens keep from their parents are as follows:
they stole the family car
they are not a virgin
they feel too much pressure from their parents to succeed
they don’t like being compared to the standards of their siblings
they lie about being at the library or other places, when they are really with their boyfriend or girlfriend
they sneak out at night
they keep secrets for their siblings, such as sexual activity/drug use
they have hidden tattoos and piercings
their friends do drugs and they go to parties with drug use
they buy/sell drugs at school
they are gay or bisexual
they steal money from their parents
they use money that their parents give them for drugs or other illegal things
they are failing school/may not graduate
they hide drugs at home
they use household items as drug paraphernalia
If you want to hear their voices firsthand, click here .
If you need help with your addicted teen, click here .
Many teenagers that use drugs these days are using them as a method of escape. Some of them are trying to escape their family, friends, school or many other things. Numerous teenagers are using drugs to help them escape a co-existing disorder that they do not even know they have.
Some parents and guidance counselors are quick to attribute poor grades in school to lack of effort or simple laziness. A lot of teenagers are sick of hearing "You have so much potential."
What many people fail to notice is the number of undiagnosed learning disabilities that today's youth has to quietly suffer with. A recent study at Columbia University suggests that 11.8 million American children have learning disabilities, but only just 3 million have actually been diagnosed. That leaves close to 9 million American children dealing with learning disabilities that they don’t know that they have.
Living with an undiagnosed learning disability can mimic unintelligence and social awkwardness. These individuals may also suffer from low self-esteem due to feeling like they cannot measure up to the rest. All of these factors contribute to the higher percentage of teenagers who have learning disabilities and use drugs than that of those who don't have learning disabilities and use drugs. Drugs can offer them the social acceptance that they have been missing as well as helping them self-medicate depression.
Have you been told your Adolescent has Dual-Diagnosis?
Can partying be more damaging to girls rather than boys?
Obviously "partying" can be detrimental to both males and females but there have been studies lately that suggest that females that party have more and higher risks than males. The apparent thing that I thought of when I heard this is that females are put at risk of rape or unwanted pregnancy, but as I have learned the risks go a lot further than this. Not only do females risk the possibility of rape or unwanted pregnancy, but they also have many physiological aspects that come into play. Research done at the Duke Medical Center suggests that females metabolize alcohol differently than males. The enzyme that breaks down alcohol works differently in males and females. This causes many different risk factors for females. They can get the same effects of alcohol with a smaller amount and in a shorter period of time than a male will get with a larger amount and a longer time period. Women also experience more impairment of cognitive function and judgment as well as experiencing more severe hangovers. "Body rot", a term that is used to describe the deterioration of the body due to using drugs or alcohol, occurs more rapidly in females. Women's brains, livers and other body parts become damaged quicker than a male's. A study showed that girls with shorter histories of drinking than their male counter parts experienced more memory loss and had more difficulty reading maps, solving puzzles and comprehending lectures or instructions. Brain function declines quicker in females due to the rapid loss of brain tissue and cells. As women experience more severe affects of alcohol than men, adolescent girls experience it worse than those that are over 21 years old, which is when the brain stops developing. Women can develop eating disorders, depression, stroke, cirrhosis of the liver and damage to the heart quicker from alcohol.
There’s a new word in the lexicon as a result of the cellular phone, and that term is
"SEXTING"
What is SEXTING? It’s an awkward word to say and the idea is even more disturbing. Sexting is the use of text messaging to send pictures of explicit body parts to others for their viewing. Of course, you can guess that they aren’t sending pictures of their hands, their toes, their knees, or their nose. No, they are sending pictures of their genitalia, full frontals, close-ups, and well, just use your imagination. It seems that more than thumbs are becoming swollen as a result of excessive texting. As nude images and videos are being exchanged, I begin to wonder what could happen if these images ended up in the possession of some pedophile or sex offender. This is just one more reason why parents need to closely monitor their kid’s cell phone use. I’d hate to know that I was paying the bill for my son’s sexting habit.
I do not think that one addict can honestly say that they have not dealt with denial in some way, shape or form. For that matter I think that every human being has probably found themselves in some form of denial at some point in time. However, addicts take denial to an extreme where it endangers their and their families and friends mental health and stability. For the addict it may even result in death.
Denial can be defined as a refusal to acknowledge or accept reality or what is true. Addicts use denial as a defense mechanism and in many cases denial runs so deep that the addict is unaware that they are using it. I have heard that denial is the acronym for “don’t even notice I am lying”. In addictions people will use denial because they do not want to feel helpless or out of control. They will also use denial for fear of losing the drink or drug which is usually their best solution to life’s problems. Step 1 of the twelve steps states that “We admit we are powerless over our addiction and our lives had become unmanageable”. As you can see step one directly deals with breaking through denial. Step 1 calls for addicts to admit that they have a problem with substances and because of that problem their lives have become chaotic and unpleasant. Denial includes such behaviors as projection, rationalization, intellectualization, minimization, suppression, withdrawing, and using geographic escapes. Denial shows up as the primary psychological symptom of addiction, they go hand in hand with one another. This makes sense considering that someone would use no defense if there were in fact nothing to defend. There are two types of denial that we see in addicts, the first appears as a way to not address the problem while using, the second comes when we deny or ignore things that we know are true while in recovery. This commonly includes examples such as “I can hang out with my using friends, I just won’t use.”, or “I can drink alcohol, drugs were my problem.” Or even “It takes more self control to have one glass of wine rather than abstain from everything all the time.”. We can bust the voice of denial by telling others our thoughts and listening to their reaction, if more than a couple people do not think that it is a good idea, it probably isn’t. They say that sharing our thoughts out loud takes the power out of them. We can also call our sponsor, go to a meeting or pray for clarity and guidance.
Let’s face it; we live in a world where there are numerous outlets for addictive personalities. One addiction is often replaced with another. Adolescents who stop using drugs often delve into other compulsions. They replace drugs with gambling, sex, cigarettes, Myspace, and yes, video game addiction. Case in point: I recently read an article about a 13 year old Italian boy who was rushed to the hospital for treatment of stroke-like symptoms. He was diagnosed with “PlayStation Addiction.” Apparently, after a marathon session of a game called Mega Man, the boy overdosed on the stimulation he experienced while playing the video game. When he returned from the hospital, he begged his father to throw the game console into the trash to avoid any future calamities. This story reminds me of the importance of structure in a teenager’s life. As parents, we need to set boundaries with our kids, because too much of anything can go terribly wrong.
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