While impending mental disorders are not the fates of all teens who experiment with drugs or drinking, mental health is an important factor to consider when thinking about how drug and alcohol abuse affect young people. Substance abuse and mental illness often occur together, both in adults and teens. In many cases, someone with an untreated Continue Reading
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Your beautiful young daughter has scarred her arms and legs with instruments of torture: razors, glass, pencil erasers — anything that can cut or burn skin. The more marks appear, the more you feel desperate to stop her from hurting herself. You ransack her room and confiscate razor blades. You lecture, bribe and cry. Nothing you do or say helps, and all of your Continue Reading
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Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is a condition most often associated with adults. However, a small percentage of children also have OCD. Most kids affected by OCD will typically see symptoms around the age of 10, and this can be very challenging for parents. However, there are ways parents can cope with a child’s OCD. Continue Reading
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Facts about teens doing drugs are frightening, especially for parents. Teen drug use rates are high and consequences of this experimentation are serious. Drug use can disrupt the developing teen brain and cause lasting damage as well as an increased risk for eventually becoming an addict. Drug use can also lead to academic problems, trouble with the law, accidents, injuries and assaults. Drug use in school happens, but it can also be prevented. Parental intervention is the most important factor.
Know the facts Continue Reading
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In the past decade, the illegal narcotic heroin has been working its way into more affluent neighborhoods after years of being the scourge of mostly lower-income areas and individuals. Many people in affluent areas are turning to heroin after becoming addicted to prescription opioid medications, because heroin is both significantly cheaper and often easier to obtain.
The connection between prescription opioid addiction and heroin use is so strong that federal statistics estimate as many as Continue Reading
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The long-running Monitoring the Future study conducted by the University of Michigan suggests that teenage alcohol and drug use in 2014 are at the lowest they have been since Continue Reading
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Problem gambling among adolescents does not get the same kind of attention that is given to drug and alcohol addiction, or even to other behavioral addictions such as Internet or social medial addiction. Nevertheless, problem gambling, the only behavioral addiction officially recognized by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), affects a large number of teenagers.
The average age at which teenagers have their first gambling experience is Continue Reading
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In any given year, a small but significant number of American teenagers misuse a prescription opioid medication. In turn, some of these medication-misusing teens will ultimately develop diagnosable symptoms of opioid use disorder, a condition that includes both non-addicted opioid abuse and opioid addiction.
In a study published in November 2014 in the Journal of Child & Adolescent Substance Abuse, researchers from the City University of New York used data from a federal project called the National Survey on Drug Use and Health to help determine Continue Reading
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New and reformulated street drugs are constantly appearing and becoming unique threats to teenagers and young adults. As soon as one drug attracts significant attention from law enforcement and the DEA, another drug comes along to take its place.
Keeping track of new drugs is a challenge, and not just for authority figures. Many new drugs are attractive to teens who want to experiment with mind-altering substances with a minimum risk of getting caught. Unfortunately, the evolving nature of these drugs, Continue Reading
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Young adults who consume marijuana often enough to have increased risks for marijuana/cannabis addiction may also have increased risks for developing a physical condition called cardiometabolic disease, researchers from two American universities report.
Although many people view marijuana/cannabis use as harmless or nearly harmless, intake of this plant-based drug actually produces addiction in substantial numbers of users, especially people who maintain a daily or near-daily level of intake.
In a study published in January 2015 in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, researchers from the University of Miami and the University of Florida assessed the potential link Continue Reading
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