Teens, Drugs, and Alcohol
Is having a beer a rite of passage during adolescence? How about smoking weed? What is the deal with substance abuse and teens?
First, it’s important to recognize that teens are natural risk takers – they need to look for novel, exciting experiences in order to “leave the nest.” Otherwise, there would be no incentive for them to find mates and reproduce, and our species would die out. But that’s the evolutionary perspective.
The fact is, drugs and alcohol provide a lot of benefits to teens: it helps them feel good (at first), fit in (in some crowds), and feel socially less inhibited. It dulls emotional pain as well as physical, presents an opportunity to take risks, and at first seems more fun than problematic.
Teen vs. Adult Substance Use
Adolescent substance abuse is not the same as adults’. But how?
- The disease of addiction progresses more quickly in teens than in adults.
- Teens have a narrower range of coping skills that lead them to rely more heavily on drugs and alcohol
- Teens who have been identified as having a problem have a briefer history of use, and a shorter list of problems, so they are more likely to deny a problem
- Teens are likely to have friends who use drugs or alcohol who have not been identified as having a problem, which also contributes to their denial
- Teens are more likely to use “episodically” than every day
- Teens tend to use a greater number of substances which can lead to more complicated withdrawal
- Teens are going through developmental changes that may mimic or exacerbate drug effects
- Teens are more likely than adults to have co-occurring problems
- Some teens “outgrow” alcohol and drug use without any intervention at all. It’s difficult to know who fits into that category though until it happens
