44 Steps to hell - the transition from normal
adolescent to hopeless addict
How to spot if your teen has started on the road to
addiction
Addiction has powerfully negative effects on adolescents, their
families and the realization of their hopes and dreams. The sad fact is
that that every addict started life as a human being with great
potential.
The addiction, like an overwhelming cancer can consume every aspect
of the adolescent's life.
There are different stages of addiction. Each stage would require a
different type of treatment modality. They are the early stage, the
middle stage and the late or advanced stage of addiction. In
adolescents, the stages of addiction can progress more quickly than as
an adult, although this is not always true. It can take a few months or
a few years to reach the later stages of addiction.
EARLY STAGES OF ADDICTION
- Begins smoking cigarettes
- Experimentation with drugs
- Begins smoking pot and drinking
- Hangs out with the drugging and drinking crowd
- May steal medications from parents
- Urgent requests for money, cons and manipulates to get requests
met
- Preoccupation with finding drugs and orients activities around
them
- School problems begin, maybe truancies or begging parents to make
excuses for them
- May not come home when requested, staying out all night
- Few consequences from their use
- Ability to control use
- Tolerance to using
- Substance use becomes a way of communicating to others
- Attention span decreases
- Lower tolerance to frustration
MIDDLE STAGES OF ADDICTION
- Beginning to try and limit their use
- Blaming others for thing that are going wrong
- Using different types of drugs to gain control over use
- Withdrawing from family and friends
- Stealing
- Academic decline and truancy
- Mood swings
- Lying
- Increase in time spent in using substances
- Changes in personal appearance
- Arguments within the family
- Legal difficulties
- Loss of control
LATE STAGES OF ADDICTION
- Suspension or being expelled from school
- Increase in anxiety
- Lowered self esteem
- Increase in legal issues
- Blackouts
- Passing out
- Signs of withdrawal symptoms
- Unable to control substance use
- Isolating
- Anger outbursts
- Denial of using
- Weekend binges or daily use
- Paranoia
- Begins to steal, deal or prostitute to support their habit
- Weight gain or weight loss
- Stops trying to hide their use
Addiction is chronic, progressive and sometimes fatal.
There are many forms of treatment for adolescent addiction. No one
single treatment is effective for all individuals. Treatment must touch
on all facets of the adolescent’s life. Social, family, school, legal
and medical are just some areas that need to be a focus on, in
treatment.
If the adolescent is using heroin, medication management may be
successful, such as buprenorphine or methadone. If an adolescent is
using drugs, the best form of treatment always includes the family.
Family participation and counseling is vital in providing proper
treatment to the adolescent. Without family participation, the chances
of the adolescent getting into recovery are low. The earlier in the
addiction cycle that the family can intervene and get treatment, the
better the chances for a full recovery.
About The Author
Wendy McLellan is a licensed mental health and substance abuse
counselor, with more than sixteen years of experience. She has recently
devoted time to the efforts of
www.safecomputerkids.com in their goal
to provide parental internet safety tools and resources to the public.
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