YOUTH SUBSTANCE ABUSE

Youth Substance Abuse

Youth Substance Abuse

The problems

Usually when you hear about problems that teenagers have, you think that they can't find their cell phone, or their love of the moment has just broken up with them for the fifth time that week. Or maybe Blink 182 didn't win any awards, and it has caused teens everywhere to fall into a deep depression. However, there are a few grave issues that teens face, most of which are overlooked by society. Not that society blatantly ignores these issues; it is the fact that said issues are quite complicated and perplexing. One of the most serious issues that teenagers face is substance abuse(Farrell 2009).

History of the problem

Teenagers are in an extremely transitional state; their hormones are kicking into full gear at alarming rates, causing drastic mood swings and a lot of the time irrationality. Many psychologists and psychiatrists alike have found that a teenager's brain, at times, has readings very much like that of a person that suffers from a mental illness of some sort. This is evidence for the fact that teenagers are extremely difficult to understand, and so in turn are many of their actions.

One aspect that has been discovered in the area of teenage substance abuse is its correlation to the family. The family is the backbone of every teen's life. They are the first people one sees in the morning, and the last people one sees at night. In addition, it is also the source to which every teen must ultimately answer. The familial unit can be the source of many problems for teenagers, because that is where the main source of discipline and surveillance lies. And because almost every teen seems to have at least a small problem with discipline, much tension can arise. (Evangeli 2009)

The familial bond is not the only way that the members of it are tied together. Many subconscious aspects come into play within the immediate family. One aspect is the correlation between teenage substance abuse, and substance abuse within the immediate family. According to Rhonda Denton's article in Adolescence magazine, the chance that a teenager will begin to abuse a substance greatly increases is substance abuse is present in the immediate family of the teen. And furthermore, the Brown University Press states that there is also a strong correlation between early child delinquency and the advancement and presence of substance abuse. Children with anti-social behavior or educational problems are quite susceptible to this early development of delinquency. There is a fine line here, however. Not every type of chemical abuse in the family attributes to this increase in probability. For instance, the abuse of alcohol by a parent in the family will greatly increase the chance for the teen to begin abusing alcohol, and also other chemical substances. But where there has been the use of marijuana by a parent, no definite correlation is evident between the use of the parent and any use by the ...