How to Prevent Drug Use in Teens

Talking to children while they are young can create a strong foundation for awareness of drug use. This helps parents positively influence their children while also teaching their children about boundaries. Although teens from all backgrounds abuse harsh and addictive chemicals, some teenagers are more at risk for addiction than others. Teens who struggle with depression or anxiety are more likely to dabble with chemicals for a sense of relief. Teens who are moving or transitioning between different schools may feel stressed and isolated.

• The studies in adults show short- and long-term reduction of symptoms, especially for patients with specific phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder.
• Psychologists have been a key part of the effort to create, test, and administer developmentally appropriate, evidence-based programs that approach prevention in a holistic, nonstigmatizing way.
• Physicians can limit access by documenting and monitoring prescription histories and refill requests for all patients and ensuring that prescription pads are secured.
• Previous research indicates that academic pressure may promote substance use [56, 64].
• Examples of prescription drugs teens may misuse include stimulants like Adderall and benzodiazepines like Xanax.

Evidence-Based Interventions for Preventing Substance Use Disorders in Adolescents

• The data suggest that patterns of substance abuse become worse in the high school years.
• Provider training can be completed in one to two days, and is conducted by the program developers either onsite or offsite.
• BASICS is based on principles of motivational interviewing, a directive, client-centered counseling style that is focused on eliciting behavior change by helping clients to explore and resolve ambivalence.
• Drugs, including tobacco and alcohol, are easily available to children and adolescents.

Rather than relying on prefrontal-based extinction learning, we have tested an alternative method called memory reconsolidation updating. Memory reconsolidation is based on the principle that memories are dynamic, not static. Reactivating a fear memory by presenting a reminder of the fear stimulus opens a time-limited window during which the memory itself becomes prone to disruption and change. Adolescence is a remarkable period of development and learning, a time when youths explore and adapt to changes in their social worlds and begin to form a sense of who they are and hope to be. It is a time when they first demonstrate a dramatic adaptability to the unique cognitive, emotional, physical, social and sexual demands placed on them as they transition from dependence on their parents or caregivers to relative independence.

• “We typically see a 30 to 60 percent drop in teen behavioral problems, and find that parent and child substance abuse diminishes,” Gordon said.
• If your teen is using substances, it’s a good idea to intervene rather than assuming it’s a phase they will outgrow.
• One way to present this information would be to collect and provide findings from classroom, school, or local community survey data that show actual prevalence rates of substance use in the immediate social environment.

What Are the Four Stages of Drug Addiction?

Adolescents are exploring their identities (including how they personally relate to drugs), learning how to weigh the consequences of their actions, and preparing for adulthood, which involves making choices about their future. The Seven Challenges Program, for example, uses supportive journaling exercises, combined with counseling, to help young people teen drug abuse practice informed decision-making around substance use with those processes in mind. For some adolescents, however, trying a substance like alcohol, marijuana, or illicit drugs leads to regular use. Once withdrawal and cravings set in, a teen dealing with addiction and dependence may not be able to stop using a substance, even if they want to.

Community Trials Intervention to Reduce High-Risk Drinking

While there are a growing number of evidence-based prevention programs for adolescent substance use and abuse, it is important that prevention efforts remain flexible and responsive to changing trends in use. For example, the abuse of prescription and over-the-counter medications among adolescents is a growing problem that requires a coordinated and comprehensive response. This is especially true because these medications are often readily accessible to teenagers, either from medicine cabinets at home, from friends or relatives, or for purchase at the local pharmacy or through the internet. Parents can limit access by safeguarding medications in a secure location, keeping an inventory of medications in the home, and disposing of unused or old medications. Physicians can limit access by documenting and monitoring prescription histories and refill requests for all patients and ensuring that prescription pads are secured.

What Causes Teens to Use Drugs?

• It is important that prevention efforts remain flexible enough to address the sometimes variable and changing nature of adolescent substance use and abuse as trends change over time.
• Students communicated their initial interest in participating to the assistant principal.
• The dramatic differences between these two worlds drove home for her how significant a zip code can be in determining a child’s outlook and opportunities.

Evidence-Based Prevention Programs

What Are the Effects of Using Drugs During Adolescence?