By Annabelle Holman


Substance abuse among youths has really increased and become a bother for most parents. Many parents are trying hard to fight off this problem while others have given up with their adolescents who have refused to change. Drug abuse occurs at early teenage life especially in schools due to peer pressures. If you evaluate the negative results of these kinds of behaviors, you will see the necessity of adolescent substance abuse evaluation of the affected youths.

Being a teenager and raising teenagers as a parent, are individually and collectively major challenges. Most parents with teenagers will tell you that it is the most difficult stage of parenting. On the other hand, teenagers are affected by their own problems especially due to the hormonal and physical changes occurring in their bodies. These changes make teens feel superior and their excitement in exploring these new feelings changes their behaviors drastically.

The teens become disobedient, fall into arguments and even to the extreme of fighting their parents. Performance at school is affected, and their friendship relationships change too. An adolescent will fall into peer pressure at school in the competition to fit into the senior dominating groups of students. If they happen to fall into negative peer pressure groups, they may be lured into bad habits such as, drugs use, early sexual relationships, fights, bullying, and criminal activities.

Adolescent drug abusers start with alcoholism and tobacco smoking. If no action is taken early, they progress into illegal cannabis smoking and other sniffing drugs. They may get involved with traffickers and start using other illegal drugs such as heroin and cocaine. This drug abuse develops over time and results into catastrophic results.

Poor performance at school and breaking school rules are first results and signs of substance use by teens. Some proceed to missing schools and classes and then to dropping out. Some are at risk of acquiring disease such as HIV AIDS through sharing needles for injecting drugs. Others who engage in sexual immorality end up getting infected with sexually transmitted infections and diseases.

Some who may have used drugs due to difficulties and stress grow into depression and other psychological problems, which put them at risks of suicidal thoughts. They are stigmatized by mates and this adds more to their problems. At home, they become a bother always fighting, swearing and even threatening to kill. This progresses into criminal activities, which become legal cases.

Bad influence is the major cause of teenagers attempting drugs use. However, there are many other reasons, which cause the bad behavior such as lack of supervision and monitoring by parents. Besides, parents who have bad habits of smoking and taking alcohol when around their children may encourage this behavior. Also by parents not creating time to interact with their children leads to teens piling up problems, and with time they venture into drug abuse viewing it as the only solution.

Seeking evaluation for drugs use in advance may help your teenager recover fully. Evaluation usually involves physical examination, psychological tests, psychosocial evaluation, and interviewing the teens. A clinical summary is prepared and treatment recommendations made, which may be drugs, counseling visits, or even rehabilitation.




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