Drug Abuse

Experimentation with drugs during adolescence is common. Unfortunately, young people often don’t see the link between their actions today and the future path drugs can lead them down. A drug addict has a tendency to feel indestructible and immune to the problems that others experience around them. Using drugs at a young age may increase the risk of using other drugs later in life. Some young people will simply experiment with drugs and quit, or continue to use off and on, without many serious issues. Others will develop a dependency, experimenting with more dangerous drugs and causing great harm to themselves and others around them.

Young people use alcohol and other drugs for many different reasons, curiousity, the good feeling drugs create, to remedy tension and stress, to simply fit in with the crowd. It is hard to determine which people will simply experiment with drugs and quit and those who will eventually develop an addiction and subsequent problems related to long-term drug use. Young people at risk for developing serious drug problems include those:

• with a family history of substance abuse
• who are depressed
• who have low self-esteem, and
• who feel like they don’t fit in or are out of the mainstream

Drug use is related to a variety of negative outcomes, including increased risk of serious drug use later in life, failure to complete or attend school, and bad decision making which may put them at risk for potential deadly activities such as accidents, violence, unsafe sex, and suicide.

• Click here for online resources related to drug abuse
• Click here for local drug abuse resources