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Sober Lifestyle

The Benefits of Sobriety: How to Talk to Your Teen About Drugs

The Benefits of Sobriety: How to Talk to Your Teen About Drugs

If you can think back to the early days of high school, you may remember that it isn’t easy being a teen – at least, in a teen’s eyes. It’s a confusing and tumultuous time, punctuated by rapid physical and social changes, which are hard to keep up with. 

Teens want to be seen and respected as adults, yet many are still woefully unprepared for the responsibilities and hardships of being a grown-up. For too many, adolescence also represents the onset of concrete mental health issues, where signs and symptoms of anxiety or depression often develop into full-blown pathology. 

It’s no wonder, then, that adolescence is often the turning point for illicit drug use and addiction. Teens are more likely to begin to experiment with drugs as they enter the last years of high school – and even if they aren’t interested, surveys show that most teens know where and how to get the drugs they want

You can’t stop a teen from being curious. But you can arm them with better knowledge and understanding of the kind of things their classmates and schoolmates try out – and make sure that they’re aware of the real downsides of drug use, the benefits of continued sobriety, and the important fact that using drugs really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. 

Starting the Conversation 

When talking to teens about drug use, a good place to start would be to look at what works and what doesn’t. The disheartening reality is that most anti-drug campaigns targeting high schools failed miserably. Some ended up correlating with an increase in teen drug use statistics. 

There are a number of potential reasons why. If you’ve ever seen a DARE campaign, then you might know that they originally began as scaremongering tactics, usually applied by police officers on school campuses. Teens generally don’t like figures of authority, but they may be especially inclined to feel indifferent or even hostile towards the police. 

Furthermore, teens – now more than ever – are notorious fact-checkers and will question anything you say. If a police officer exaggerates the dangers of marijuana or lies about how heroin will make you addicted after a single hit, they might come to question everything they’ve ever heard about drugs from figures of authority. 

Stick to the truth, which is ugly enough. Some of the facts of teenage drug use include:

  • A correlation between age of first contact and risk of addiction. The younger someone is the first time they try addictive substances, the more likely they are to struggle with addiction later in life. 
  • The facts on teenage drug use and cognitive decline. Certain drugs – especially stimulants and alcohol – have been linked to a marked decrease in decision making, risk assessment, and executive functioning. 
  • The long-term link between alcohol and anxiety. Some teens drink to feel disinhibited and achieve a calming effect while buzzed – but long-term alcohol use actually increases symptoms of anxiety, making the brain more susceptible to stressful triggers, and physiologically aggravating the sympathetic nervous system (the brain’s gas pedal) through dehydration and nerve damage. 
  • Higher rates of unsafe sex, pregnancy, and car accidents among teens who regularly drink or use drugs. Drug use reduces your capacity to recognize and react to risk, something teenagers already innately struggle with. 
  • Increased risk of physical and sexual violence between teens whenever drugs are involved, including alcohol. 
  • And more

Teens like feeling smart, and knowing they’ve made a better choice. Selling sobriety as the smart choice, the cool choice, and even the choice of counterculture is often going to be easier than just telling your teens that drugs are bad, so they shouldn’t do them. Many successful anti-drug campaigns banked on the fact that, while drugs like marijuana might not always be a gateway to harder substances or a cause of overdose deaths, they are still pretty “lame”. 

Being Sober is Cool, Actually

Different drugs have different consequences. Famously “hard” drugs like cocaine and heroin are as addictive as they are dangerous. Heroin and other opioids have become incredibly dangerous in the US as a result of the opioid epidemic – opioid supplies have increased massively in recent years, often laced with a potent opioid called fentanyl, which is fatal in low doses. 

Yet even ostensibly legal drugs like alcohol and nicotine, or potential legal substances like marijuana have their fair share of consequences, especially for teens. While it’s hard to overdose on a cigarette, nicotine is unbelievably addictive (even more so that most street drugs), and tobacco continues to be a major cause of heart failure, lung disease, and strokes. Although smoking on campus has declined, nicotine has made a major comeback through e-cigarettes and vaping, which carry their own special list of risks. 

Alcohol, due to its ubiquitous availability and cultural status, is a drug nearly every teen has tried before they’re legally capable of purchasing it. Yet in terms of damage per capita, excessive drinking alone makes alcohol perhaps the most fatal drug of all, linked to nearly 400 deaths per day.  

While marijuana may even see multiple medical uses in the near future, it isn’t harmless either. Long-term marijuana use is linked to a significant decline in mental faculties, especially memory and problem solving. 

Trust is Important 

Teens generally understand that using drugs is illegal, and even dangerous. If you’ve ever talked to your child about medication in the past, then they might even know that certain medication can be helpful under specific contexts and with the right dosages, but dangerous when taken without direction. 

Yet that doesn’t immunize even the smartest or most level-headed teen from making an exception if the circumstances feel right. These kinds of decisions are always made in-the-moment, and even if they result in feelings of guilt or remorse right after, the truth is that teens are just a lot more impulsive than adults, and that’s partially to blame on the way their head works. 

There’s a difference between doing something you’re not supposed to, and not coming forward with it. If your teen has used drugs in the past, it’s important that they understand they can trust you enough to tell you about it. That trust requires a few things, including: 

  • An understanding that you will be non-judgmental towards your teen’s actions and decisions
  • Knowing that you will give them the opportunity to explain themselves – even if that explanation does nothing to excuse the risk they put themselves through. 

If you suspect that your teen has been using drugs or has used drugs in the past, address your concerns without coming across as accusatory or interrogative. Bring up the topic of drugs impartially and non-personally, and perhaps even talk about your own experiences with drugs in the past, or those of someone you knew. 

Then, ask your teen if they’ve ever tried anything, or know someone who did. Giving your teen the opportunity to talk about someone else allows them to project their experiences onto a friend to gauge your reaction – and if you aren’t wrathful, they might be more likely to admit that they were talking about themselves. 

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Sober Lifestyle

Holidays and Recovery for Teens: Staying Sober and on Track

The holidays and recovery can be tough to navigate, especially for teens trying to stay sober and compliant with addiction treatment. Between Christmas parties and year-ender benders, young adults and teens, in particular, tend to look forward to the winter break as one last opportunity to swing for the fences, metaphorically.

It’s one thing to stay sober when everyone else is cutting down on drinking to study for the midterms – it’s an entirely different thing to try and stay sober when your friends and coursemates are getting visibly drunk on Instagram every other weekend. If this is your first holiday season staying sober, then it’s doubly challenging. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Here’s what you should know about staying off the sauce during the winter period.

Holidays and Recovery: Staying Sober

Like anything else, sobriety is about taking it a day at a time and building the positive habits that help reinforce your discipline. But you’re still human and fallible. So, ask for help.

Support is crucial, especially in the first few months and years of sobriety, and it’s important to keep people around who can hold you accountable and make sure that you’re dotting your i’s and crossing your t’s, in terms of recovery programming, therapy, and daily healthy habits.

Whether that means picking up a sponsor, putting up an old friend to the task, or asking your parents or siblings to check up on you and keep you on the straight and narrow is up to you.

Talk to your therapist or specialist about setting short-term goals and creating manageable weekly or daily to-do lists for your mental and physical health. Drug use, especially at an early age, can be physically debilitating.

It can take a lot of time to build up a healthier body through exercise and diet, but doing so is one of the best lines of defense against recurring cravings and relapses – by dedicating more time towards mental and physical health, you continuously deter a potential relapse and create an ever greater list of reasons to stick to sobriety.

The holidays, in particular, can be a decadent and tempting time, whether it’s over mulled wine and eggnog or watching your friends (or former friends) party the night away. You can still have fun. But you will need to set a few basic immutable ground rules.

Here are five ways you can manage holidays and recovery successfully for a sober season.

1. Always Keep a Sober Friend Around

The last thing you should do is be the only sober person around. Not only is that demoralizing, but it is excruciatingly hard, especially if you haven’t been sober for very long. It’s one thing to develop decades of sobriety – but it’s another when it’s your first time out in months and everyone around you is getting drunk.

Always keep someone around who will stay sober with you, no matter what. Ideally, avoid parties with alcohol, to begin with – but if that is not an option, make sure you’re with someone who will hold you accountable and who is not afraid to muscle you out of the party if they’re worried that you might do something you will regret the next day.

2. Do Your Friends Respect Your Boundaries?

Teens can be smart and insightful, but they can also be the exact opposite. Your closest friends might support your decision to seek help for your drinking problem, but that does not mean they will take their own drinking down a notch or two, even in your presence.

If you’re coming out of a residential treatment program, off of a long stint in rehab, or off of an outpatient program and don’t want to be near or around booze and those who drink it, keep an eye on how your friends react.

Are they ready to give up drinking around you? Are they fine with joining you on sober outings, like a hiking trip or a visit to the ice rink, instead of taking you to the club? Do they respect your new sober boundaries? If they do, that’s great. If they don’t and insist on partying and getting drunk while you’re around and triggering your cravings – reconsider spending your time with them. It is not worth the pain and anguish of continuous relapses and struggles through recovery.

3. Keep Booze Out of the Home

One of the most important things to do when coming back from a program or when getting started with an outpatient program is to get rid of it all. Toss it. Throw it out. Give it to someone else. Dump it down the drain.

Even if the task is just to not drink, having drinks around will always give you that urge to down a bottle at the end of the day when the cravings kick in if you know there’s one around.

Get rid of that temptation, especially over a stressful period like the holidays. The “security blanket” of a secret stash is not worth the actual grief and regret of using it.

4. Keep a Sober Drink on Hand

When spending time at a party, having a sober friend should be rule one. Rule two should be to keep your hands and mouth occupied with a sober drink – keep some juice around, or club soda, or anything non-alcoholic and somewhat enjoyable.

When you’re empty, get yourself a refill – just having a drink in hand can help deter strangers from asking to buy you one. 

5. Continue to Attend Group Meetings

A lot of people tend to speed through December with thoughts of the new year swirling in their minds. But don’t forget, the last month of the year still represents a solid eighth of the entire year. That’s a lot of time, and with consistency as our goal, you should continue to spend that time in recovery the same way you would any other month by continuing to do the following:

  • Scheduling therapy appointments
  • Going to meetings
  • Talking to your sponsors or sober friends
  • Committing to sobriety, even during the holidays
  • Setting your goals and schedules
  • Fostering your positive habits

Consider a Holiday Treatment Plan

If you’re struggling with the holidays and recovery, negative thoughts, or cravings more than usual, it’s important to remember that prevention is better than a cure.

Talk to a therapist or re-enroll yourself in an outpatient or inpatient program before you relapse. You don’t need to fall off the wagon before reattending a treatment program, particularly if the holidays are an especially stressful time for you. It’s okay to get help.

For more information about teen addiction treatment, visit Visions Treatment Centers.

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Family Recovery Sober Lifestyle

Teen Recovery: 7 Support Tips

The earliest few months after beginning the recovery process – from detox and rehab to therapy – might be the most important. One thing both parents and recovering teens need to know is that there is no real “end” to the recovery process. If you’ve struggled with a substance abuse disorder, some part of you will always need to dedicate itself to leading a life free of drugs and their effect. That’s not easy to do without help, which brings us to support for teen recovery.

Robust Support for Teen Recovery

Whether it’s family or friends, or both, we all need support systems. Teens recovering from a substance use disorder need more robust support systems than most. Doing your part to help your best friend or your child recover from addiction involves more than looking out for any signs of relapse or keeping in touch with their therapist and doctor. It means being involved in the recovery process, helping them find new meaning in life, helping them reclaim their self-confidence and their identity, helping them figure out who they want to be, and keeping them accountable throughout the process.

Tips for Teen Recovery

As part of the process, here are seven support tips for teen recovery.

1. Get Informed

First and foremost, keep on learning. Find reputable sources to discover more about how addiction works, and what we know about treating it.

There are countless different online resources for learning about addiction, mental health conditions, and addiction treatment, but not all of them are useful. Learning to differentiate between junk sources and good science is an important part of the process. A good tip would be to take an online class on reading and dissecting research papers, and diving through journals that focus on mental health treatment and addiction.

Another option is to speak directly to the professionals your teen is working with. They might be able to point you towards current, up-to-date books and resources for learning more about addiction as we know it.

Understanding how addiction works can help bring you a step closer to your loved one. Many people find themselves in a position where their relative or friend begins to struggle with drug use, and while most are sympathetic about it, some can’t help but feel judgmental. Understanding how addiction truly works can help you develop a greater feeling of empathy for your friend or loved one, and it can help inform, fuel, and guide your support.

2. Get Involved

Some therapists and doctors will encourage the participation of family members and friends in the recovery process, not only as a source of support and as the foundation for a long-standing support network, but as participants in family therapy or group therapy sessions, for example.

Getting involved also means working in tandem with your friend or loved one to help them find therapy groups in their area, providing your number as an emergency contact if the urge to use or any sign of relapse comes up, and more.

3. Help Your Teen Set Goals

Goal setting can help teens recontextualize recovery as a journey of self-improvement and reflection, rather than a penance or a short-term treatment process. Recovering from addiction usually entails finding new meaning in life through activities, hobbies, and interests that are far removed from the context of drug use, or the lifestyle that contributed to a teen’s drug habits in the past. It means turning a new leaf and dedicating your time towards something valuable to yourself, incentivizing sobriety, and making your old habits less and less attractive with each passing day.

Encourage simple goals at first. They could be physically oriented, career-based, or school-based. It could be something like improving their grades across the board with the help of a tutor, or getting back in shape enough to compete in their favorite sports. As time passes, bigger, greater goals are needed – like getting accepted into a specific college, making varsity, or compiling and finishing a first professional artist’s portfolio.

Short- and long-term goals help teens positively develop coping skills and reorient themselves in the same basic fashion as an addictive drug – yet instead of the positive reinforcement of a substance, their reinforcement is coming in the form of self-satisfaction and achievement, no matter how small.

4. Teach Them New Skills

Learning new things is exciting and a great way to develop new interests, create new hobbies, meet new people, and find brand new passions. It can also be a way for a family member or close friend to bond with their loved one after a potential falling out.

Many relationships don’t survive addiction or are harmed by it. It can erode friendships and even break family ties. Finding ways to spend more time together can provide opportunities for healing.

5. Improve Your Health Together

It’s no wonder that addiction takes a toll on the mind and the body. Some of the side effects of long-term drug use can include drastic weight gain or weight loss, malnutrition, long-term neurological effects (including neuropathy), and organ damage.

In addition to medical attention, both diet and exercise play an important part in potentially reversing many of the lasting effects of drug abuse. However, forcing a teen to figure out their own health is daunting, especially after rehab. They need to be eased into independence and self-sufficiency and will rely on support for some time. That means leading by example and working together to reach health goals through a cleaner diet and regular exercise.

6. Support Their Dream

Regular goal setting and healthier living are core tenets of sustainable sobriety, but if your teen has something they’re specifically very passionate about – something that they feel they can dedicate themselves to, wholly – do your best to support that dream.

7. Don’t Expect the World of Them

This doesn’t mean you should give up any hope of long-term recovery, but it’s important to note that addiction can be a severe illness, and it can take a long time – and multiple relapses – before your teen friend or loved one manages to overcome their drug use indefinitely, and lead a healthier, fulfilling life.

Until then, there may be times when you’re hurt, frustrated, or disappointed by their lack of progress or by their regression into negative and destructive habits. Learn to create boundaries to protect yourself and prioritize your own mental health when you’re feeling down.

Understand that relapses and frustrating moments can happen and that you should not set your expectations too high when starting out. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Starting the Recovery Journey at Visions

If you or a loved one is struggling with substance abuse, reach out to us to get the help you need and deserve.

Don’t wait. Start your recovery journey today at Visions Treatment Centers.

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Sober Lifestyle Wellness

6 Summer Sobriety Goals for Teens

With summer fast approaching, everyone is yearning to finish up with the last of their projects and enjoy a long-awaited and well-deserved summer break. But for kids with a history of substance use, summer also means new opportunities for relapse, and a host of social risks. Facing these properly means being prepared, and ready for what’s to come with a set of sobriety goals.

Each Day Counts

If you’re working towards long-term sobriety as a teen, each day counts. Substance use problems at a young age are even more dangerous than they are in adulthood, and given all the other challenges and pressures facing young people nowadays, an addiction is an additional handicap no one should have to work with.

While the school months give teens some much needed daily structure, summer break means more freedom and more free time. This is great, but without a matching daily structure, that free time can lead to boredom, and worse things. For teens with a history of dual diagnosis, or addiction and a mental health problem, a lack of daily structure can feed into a destructive spiral.

6 Sobriety Goals for Teens this Summer

Personal goal setting helps teens plan ahead, creating a daily schedule to keep themselves busy with what they want to do, improving their self-sufficiency and self-esteem, while helping them become more comfortable with support structures and their newfound sober social network. Let’s go over a few goals teens can set for themselves this summer to nurture their sobriety.

1. Achieve Your Short-Term Sobriety

What is “short-term sobriety” to you? Most of us have a number in mind that might feel difficult to achieve, or scary to overcome.

Reaching that number through day-to-day incremental progress is important, because it teaches us to remember that each day is just like any other, and that it’s not about trying to “last” without drugs for a certain amount of time, but to instead live a sober life with no consideration for how long you’ve been sober, because it doesn’t matter.

Whether it’s a month, three months, or half a year, reaching your first “milestone” helps you realize the ironic importance of the journey over the goal of long-term sobriety.

2. Create A Flexible Fitness Goal

Fitness goals are a great idea for the summer because they incentivize movement, are often concrete (mastering a certain move, reaching a certain level of fitness, beating a certain time, or reaching a certain weight), and can be achieved through day-to-day and week-to-week planning. Whatever your goal may be, pick something specific to the things you enjoy, rather than an arbitrary fitness goal. If you hate running, there’s no reason to try and train for a six-minute mile. Your goals could be subjective or deeply personal, such as mastering a tough dance routine that you’ve always wanted to do or getting closer to a true split.

3. Commit to Greens

Substance use is often conflated with poor nutritional health, in part because good food and a healthy diet may be harder to maintain while addicted, and because many addictive substances either greatly increase or decrease appetite. A healthier body is not just less likely to relapse, but can help you think better, sleep better, perform better, and feel better. And the key to that is good greens.

If you aren’t big on eating vegetables, there are a few ways to incorporate more of them into your diet. Consider working frozen greens into your food plan by making breakfast smoothies with fruits of your choice and some baby spinach.

Experiment with different leafy greens to find the kind that you might like. Did you know that there are far more types of green lettuce than the typical iceberg? Give arugula a try for something spicier or try Swiss chard for a bitter leaf. Improve your salads with a combination of nutritious add-ons, like seared tuna, roasted pumpkin, fresh apple slices, different light cheeses, and interesting homemade dressings, such as orange-wasabi, honey-soy, or garlic-yogurt.

4. Nurture New Friendships

Make time for the people you’ve been meeting through sobriety, especially if you’ve been spending most of your time alone for the last few months. Social interactions are both risk factors and important protective factors for any mental health condition.

Acquaintances, friendships, and deep personal bonds help us improve our emotional health and wellbeing, train our social skills, develop stronger empathic ideas, and become better people – given we’re hanging out with the right people, as well.  

5. Keep Learning New Things

While school is all about learning, it’s an entirely different thing to go out of your way to learn a new skill on your own.

Autodidactic skills can greatly improve a person’s cognitive functioning and autonomy and help provide teens with a host of useful life skills, from fact-checking to proper sourcing, research skills, and a more creative mind–not to mention the benefits of the skill itself!

It could range from a neat party trick, such as getting good at darts, to opening new career opportunities through additional language skills or coding practice. It may also help you explore what you want to do later in life by giving you a taste of a variety of different trades and crafts.

6. A Self-Reflection Goal of Your Choice

Not everyone enjoys meditating, but there are certain benefits to taking time out of your day, each day, and dedicating to self-reflection or quiet. If you aren’t inclined towards mindfulness exercises or meditation, consider other forms of self-reflection or relaxation, including yogajournaling, nature walks, autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR), and sky gazing.

Setting Your Own Sobriety Goals

What about setting your own goals? If you have certain specific goals in mind, making them your priority this summer could be a good idea. But you must differentiate between an ambition and a realistic goal.

It’s one thing to aim to be accepted into your one dream college – but it’s smarter to approach this goal as “getting into college”, instead. There’s a great benefit to goal setting in that achieving our goals can help us feel accomplished and fulfilled. But missing the mark can be quite difficult.

Make it a Sober Summer with Your Best Goals

Life will be full of opportunities to go above and beyond and risk missing the mark for a potential shot at something extraordinary, but in the early stages of the recovery process, structuring your sobriety goals modestly is important.

Furthermore, a lot of teens may feel overwhelmed in the day-to-day if their goals are too far-fetched or vague to begin with. Define your end goal, but also determine progress points you might want to meet along the way, as well as a day-to-day plan to help you achieve that progress.

For example, if you have a physical goal – such as looking and feeling healthier – you might consider revisiting and redefining your goal as time goes on, and as the rate at which you are making progress becomes clearer.  

A good sobriety goal is not just a single defined endpoint, but a journey you can refer to in smaller, realistic steps to reassure yourself that you’re still on the right path, and to keep yourself from getting overwhelmed.

Reach Out to Visions Treatment Centers

If at any point you are struggling with substance abuse or sobriety, speak to a professional. Many treatment options like a residential treatment center for teens exist to get you back on track.

At Visions Treatment Centers, we treat adolescents for various mental health disorders and dual diagnoses, including drinking disorders, marijuana, and more.

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