Category: Recovery

Why Parents Who Buy Their Kids Alcohol Are Fueling the Fire

A recent survey shows that nearly 40% of parents give their kids alcohol on holidays or when they are celebrating an end to an examination. More than half of the parents interviewed said they would give their 16 and 17 year old five or more bottles of spirits or wines for a week.  

Why?

Well, most parents who provide alcohol to their children say they do not want their kids getting the booze from unknown people. 36% say they think it is safer for the kids to get the alcohol from them rather than strangers. A further 22% believe that it makes it easier to track the amount of alcohol the kids consumed.

A number of parents are also introducing their kids to drinking as a “rite of passage.” To them, these kids are bound to drink later in life so they should be taught “safe drinking” from an early age.

Risks

What these parents fail to understand is that introduction to alcohol at such a tender age can have harmful effects on the kids life both in the present and in future. Research shows that young people who have always known that their parents disapprove of substance use are less likely to use alcohol and other drugs like tobacco, marijuana, and even the hard drugs like cocaine and heroin. On the contrary, those who drink with the permission and under the supervision of their parents are likely to remain users of drugs for a long time. Indeed, people who start drinking before they are 15 are up to five times more likely to become addicts compared to those who start drinking after 21.

These kids also face several health risks. Alcohol is directly to blame for memory loss and has adverse effects on long term thinking. Drinking also hampers hormonal balance which is critical for adolescents, a stage associated with enormous growth of organs, bones and muscles.

For kids, alcohol has often caused poor academic performance and engagement in risky behaviors such as unprotected sex, fights, self-harm, and even car wreckage.

Instead of giving alcohol to kids, parents should actually be helping their loved ones abstain from it.

Call 866-889-3665 to talk to a professional at Visions Teen Adolescent Treatment Centers for more information.

Residential Inpatient Treatment For Teenage Drug Abuse

Living with a stranger?

When the symptoms of drug abuse first start to appear it’s easy to chalk it up to normal teenage angst.  Most parents don’t want to alienate their already distant child and hesitate to voice their fears. But then the signs become impossible to deny; Bloodshot eyes, weight loss, isolation, and changes in school or friends. Your teen becomes a stranger. Whether they started out curious or trying to impress their peers, the drugs take over their life and yours. You are not alone.  

Out of Control

When drug addiction becomes the focus in the life of someone we love, it also becomes a focus for all those around them.  Whether it’s obtaining and using the drug or trying to watch out for signs and symptoms as a parent trying to protect them, life can be traumatic and unstable.  That’s when parents must realize that they can’t do it alone.

Help is here

Visions Residential Inpatient Treatment is here to help.  Trust and hope will replace the feelings of fear and anxiety in a safe, supportive, intensive residential treatment program that will help your teen admit their problem and begin to make better choices.

Treatment in a Home-like Setting

Residential treatment for teens is located in the hills of Malibu, California on 25 acres of private beauty.  Two home-like facilities offer safety as well as privacy from the public.  Families from the surrounding areas as well as those from around the world choose Visions Inpatient Treatment Facility.

Our staff has been providing the best treatment since 2002 and includes:

• Licensed Therapists who specialize in Substance Abuse
• Psychiatrist
• Psychologists
• Medical Doctors
• Registered Dietitian
• Equine Therapist
• Supervising Nurse
• Art Therapists

Financial Information

Visions Residential Inpatient Treatment Center for Teens is a private pay program and full payment is required from the family. Our team will assist with insurance benefit verification & utilization review.

Visions Outpatient works out of network with insurance. We will provide the following services to our Outpatient families: Benefit Verification, Pre-Authorization, Utilization Review, Billing & Collections.

We are here to help.  Please click below to schedule your consultation or call us at 866-889-3665.

Find Residential Treatment Centers For Adolescents Reviews

When your child is in crisis, a sickened and desperate feeling can plague an already stressful situation and leave parents feeling hopeless. The troubled teens are often unaware of just how dangerous their situation has become. What is a concerned parent to do when they feel they have tried everything and yet find themselves helpless to stop the downhill slide?   

If your child has surrounded themselves with the wrong influences, begins having trouble at home, at school, and with authority, chances are the underlying issues run deep.  Trying to fix those issues on your own is just not the answer, and doing it in the same surroundings where the trouble started rarely works.  Residential treatment for teens at Visions Teen can take the child out of the dangerous situations they have created and offer them a comprehensive treatment program that gets to the root of their issues.

Adolescent Residential Treatment Offers Hope

By first removing your child from the surroundings that have led them down such a dangerous path, he can begin to isolate the true issues causing the at-risk behaviors. Whether they are plagued by an addiction, a mental illness or both, a diagnosis and a progressive and intensive treatment plan is what is needed.

All residential treatment clients at Visions Teen are placed in a home at our Malibu facility that is in a secluded rural setting conducive to recovery and serenity. Our clinicians offer them the safe environment needed to address issues while healing in a home atmosphere with other teens who are dealing with the same issues.

This bonding adds to a healthy environment where teens feel safe to discuss their inner thoughts, fears, and feelings with each other and the professional staff.  Each client at Visions Teen undergoes a thorough and expansive evaluation to determine just what issues the teen needs to address to regain a healthy life. After their assessment, a length of stay is determined that will last between 45-90 days.

Each teen will have the following professionals to see to their care:

• Medical Doctors
• Psychiatrist
• Psychologists
• Licensed Therapists
• Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Informed Programming
• Counselors
• Equine Therapist
• Supervising Nurse
• Art Therapists

Collectively this team of professionals will see to your child’s return to health and individualized treatment to set their lives back on track. There is hope. Call 866-889-3665 to schedule your consultation today.

Locate a Top Residential Treatment For Troubled Teenagers in California

When you have a son or daughter who is suffering from an addiction it’s hard to find them the help they need. It can seem that no matter what you do to try to help them, nothing will work.  The grip of addiction on a vulnerable teen can take over so that you don’t recognize the child you have loved since their birth. Trying to tackle such an all consuming situation while your teen stays exposed to the dangerous life choices, places, and people they’re involved with seldom sees success. In such serious circumstances the troubled teen must almost always enter residential treatment in order to change their situation.  

Most often these addicted teens are unable to avoid the dangers they have exposed themselves to. By locating an extended residential treatment facility that specializes in troubled teens, you provide your adolescent with the best opportunity to leave their risky behaviors and influences behind and start fresh with the best chance at beginning the long process of recovery.

Troubled teens are one of the most vulnerable and at risk age groups for falling victim to the dangers of addiction. As their age group is particularly susceptible to instant gratification and peer pressures, their bodies can quickly become dependent and cause them to act in self destructive ways.  These troubled adolescents require specialists and residential treatment professionals who are experienced in dealing specifically with the pressures that only teens are subject to.  Finding a residential facility that caters strictly to their individual pressures and dangers is vital to their receiving the kind of specialized care that only experienced clinicians can provide.

Visions Teen provides a long term residential treatment program that is designed specifically for the adolescent age group.  Our trained medical doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, licensed therapists, and counselors treat only teens that are affected by underlying mental illness and addiction issues in order to see them recover.  Our comprehensive residential treatment programs are no less than 45 days, up to 90 days in length, providing the time necessary for the use of our most effective informed programming by dialectical behavior therapy.

Find the help that your troubled teen needs at Visions Teen. Our treatment professionals can help you to locate the exact resources your at risk adolescent needs in order to get their young lives back on track. Call us at 866-889-3665 to schedule your consultation today.

California Substance Abuse Programs For Adolescents

One of the fastest growing populations affected by addiction is the age group of 13-18 year old teens.  These young addicts are in a very crucial stage of both physical and mental development and can very often find themselves developing a drug habit from giving in to peer pressure with experimental use. It is hard for parents of these troubled teens to speak with their adolescents. Most often  teens block out any discussion that comes from a source of authority. While most parents begin to notice a distinct change in their teens behavior, many parent’s are caught off guard by the extent of their child’s dependency.  

Teens are naturally secretive and contrary to any direct discipline or what they perceive as challenges to their independence. Often a parent’s well intentioned actions of increasing penalties and disciplinary measures are often met with direct defiance and lying. Just where do these parent’s of troubled teens turn when all their efforts to help their teen have failed?  They turn to the experts, those medical professionals who are skilled and experienced in treating the many facets of teen addiction.

The biggest challenge for these parents is often finding the specific resources necessary and vital to a teen addicts recovery. While there are many medical residential treatment facilities throughout the nation that treat substance abuse, there are precious few that specialize in the recovery of teens with addiction issues.  Southern California is home to a facility that specializes in the treatment of addicted teens with both a residential, and out patient treatment facility that has a teen specific substance abuse programs.

Visions Teen is staffed with medical professionals who specialize in treating only the addiction issues of teens. Having your adolescent exposed to lifetime using addicts in treatment is hardly the right environment for their recovery. Being in teen specific substance abuse programs pairs them with others most like them, those that are dealing with the same pressures and expectations that plague them at this impressionable age. Seeing positive peers in active recovery from the same drug dependencies and circumstances they are struggling to overcome aids in modeling of positive influences and behaviors.

For the best in substance abuse programs to treat teen addiction trust the experienced professionals whose careers are dedicated to this at risk age group. Visions Teen counselors are standing by at 866-889-3665 to help, call for a consultation today.

Find Programs Designed For Troubled Youth and Troubled Teenagers

Finding professional help for a troubled teen can be a significant challenge. Parents quickly find that they must widen the net of their search to find programs for troubled youth.  “Troubled teens” is a term that describes a multitude of different life issues, some more threatening than others. Most troubled youth suffer from addiction, mental health problems, run away tendencies and poor surrounding influences. For teens to recover from such perils that threaten both their physical and behavioral development, it’s imperative that they change the negative exposure to dangerous influences that have become prevalent in their daily life choices.  

Finding suitable programs for troubled youth presents challenges for parents and clinicians alike as precious few facilities are equipped to handle teen specific patients. Teen clients present clinicians with challenges not seen in other populations. Teens are very susceptible to peer pressures and influences, so finding a treatment facility that can offer positive peer program participants is crucial. This specific search leads many parents of troubled adolescents to southern California.

Visions Teen is a residential treatment facility located in the secluded environment of Malibu California. This facility is completely dedicated to the specific treatment of teen substance abuse and mental illness. Our rural 24 acre facility removes the teen from their at risk environmental influences and exposes them to other peers who are in the process of recovery.  Our programs for troubled teens last from 45-90 days and place teens in a residential home environment that offers all the medical specialties their physical conditions require.

After a thorough evaluation each teen is assigned a medical doctor and supervising nurse to oversee their physical ailments. In addition, each child works independently with a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a licensed therapist, and a counselor to work with them to address each of their problems and ensure their return to peak physical and mental health.

Visions Teen is a facility whose entire staff is dedicated to addressing the issues that only teens face. At our facility adolescents find the treatment and supportive environment they need to facilitate the changes in their thinking that will help them make better choices and take hold of their future. Call Visions Teen today at 866-889-3665 to schedule a consultation for your troubled teen. The specific help they need is only a phone call away.

Derek Kreager and Dana A. Haynie released a study with the American Sociological Association on the drinking behaviors of adolescents and their peer groups.

They discovered that the adolescent drinking habits of a romantic partner’s friends are more likely to influence one’s drinking behavior than the adolescent’s partner or actual friends – this refers to both binge drinking and drinking frequency. For example, “the study found that the odds of an adolescent binge drinking if his or her partner’s friends engage in heavy drinking is more than twice as high as the likelihood of an adolescent binge drinking if his or her friends or significant other drink heavily.”

Derek Kreager, lead author of the study along with Dana A Haynie noted that adolescents typically attempt to be more like their partner’s friends in order to try and form a stronger bond with his or her partner. What this study elucidates is the influence relationships with peer groups have on adolescent behavior. The addition of new and often different peers introduces new norms and new opportunities to explore, and not all of them are positive. A romantic partner that hangs around with the party crowd is going to have a different influence than the partner who hangs out with a quieter crowd. With this in mind, the study also showed the positive influence of a quieter peer group on an adolescent that has had a history of drinking. In general, peer influence has a lot of power on the life of an adolescent.

Because we are in the recovery field, it’s common for us to view mental health and substance abuse from the psychological perspective. However, it’s important to also view it through the sociological lens.  Influence from peer groups peak during adolescence, but it is often short lived. The long-term influence comes from family, i.e., one’s root relationship.  Still, peer groups have strong influence on socialization, particularly during adolescence. It’s important to retain transparency as a family and open-mindedness, which will encourage an adolescent to reach out and come back into a healthier construct of family influence.  If that family input is dysfunctional, however, a teen could subconsciously seek a seemingly more reliable root system to latch onto and they will seek that within their peer groups. Because teens tend toward impulsivity and risk-taking behavior, however, their choices in this matter may be compromised, though not always.

It’s important to make sure we come from a place of understanding and curiosity when we are working with adolescents and their peer groups.  We were all adolescents at one point in our lives and if we can remember the challenges that came with it, we will be better parents and professionals to our teens. Understanding the value of teens and the incredible influence their peer groups have will help us redirect our teens if they are on a wilder path.

Related articles

• Adolescents particularly susceptible to drinking habits of romantic partner’s friends

Inpatient Drug Rehab For Teenagers

Substance abuse and addiction are tough in any age group. However, there are many special considerations when dealing with adolescent drug use and abuse. Adults that suffer from particularly intractable addictions are likely to have been teen substance abusers. Many drugs, like methamphetamine, can cause disruptions to brain chemical balance that can take years resolve. These substances can be particularly damaging to teens because of the powerful brain and body changes they are already experiencing. Inpatient drug rehab for teenagers may be the best treatment option for long-term success.  

Holistic Care Philosophy

Addiction doesn’t happen in isolation and its treatment needs to reflect that. That is why holistic, whole person care is the cutting edge of addiction care today. Inpatient drug rehab for teenagers is often the most effective solution because it facilitates a focused, collaborative team approach to help a teen overcome substance abuse and addiction. Many teens that are abusing drugs are also struggling with other issues, such as family problems or emotional traumas. There may be diagnosed or undiagnosed mental health disorders, learning disabilities, or other conditions. For drug rehabilitation to be successful over the long-term, these associated issues must also be treated.

Special Needs

Adolescence is a period of powerful developmental changes. A teen’s cognitive development is in progress, adding complexity to the treatment process. Depending on age and rate of development, for example, a teen may lack the capacity for abstract thought a person just a few years older has. With abstract thought comes the ability to really connect current actions with future outcomes. Teens struggle with identity during this period. They’re forming their own value systems and are often full of contradictory thoughts and emotions. Adolescents have special treatment needs that are best addressed with specialized inpatient drug rehab for teenagers.

Don’t Delay

The mistakes of adolescence differ from those of childhood in that their repercussions can be far more serious, changing the entire course of a teen’s life. Accepting that a teen’s drug use has gone far past youthful experimentation to substance abuse or even addiction is difficult, but must be done. It’s critical to getting your teen the care he or she needs. At Visions inpatient drug rehab for teenagers, your family will find skilled, cutting-edge care able to help your teen get back on the right path. Don’t delay. Please click below to schedule your consultation, or call us at 866-889-3665 .