Communities Are Leading the Way to Prevent Youth Substance Use Feature Topics Drug Overdose

Content

Popular drugs among teens
Homelessness Programs and Resources
Find opportunities and resources for youth!
Most Commonly Used Substances Among Teens
Student Support

Substances that teens may use include those that are legal for adults, such as alcohol or tobacco. They may also use medicines prescribed to other people, such as opioids. And if they are lonely or dealing with stress, teens may use substances to distract from these feelings.

talk

teen drug abuseive measures are often the best way to protect your teen from possible substance abuse. Keeping your teen safe yet knowledgeable about various substances can take several forms. It is essential to use a combination of techniques to have the most significant impact on your teen. Recognizing the threat of both internal and external pressures is key to identifying when conditions are ripe to allow substance experimentation to transform into substance abuse. Digging deeper, the statistics surrounding teen substance abuse are staggering, and the National Institutes of Health list some concerning facts.

Popular drugs among teens

Often, parents of teens wrapped up in substance abuse slip into enabling. This is when the detrimental behavior is implicitly accepted and allowed to continue because a parent is in denial of the circumstances their teen finds themselves in. Several hotlines can offer immediate and professional assistance for parents. Parent helplines for teen substance abuse can help give you much-needed support quickly. Finding the right treatment center is easy with many versatile and adaptive options.

We’re here to help you make informed treatment decisions for your family.
Alcohol is the most common substance used among teenagers, with 64% of 18 year-olds approving its lifetime use.
In starting a conversation with your teenager, come prepared.
Meanwhile, it may be helpful to emphasize health and performance as a way to positively reinforce better behavior; however, don’t make this too pointed.
After dinner, before bed, before school or on the way to or from school and extracurricular activities can work well.

This guide for parents of addicted teens provides information to help you better understand your child and the journey ahead. According to the Centers for Disease Control marijuana, alcohol, and tobacco products remain popular drugs for teens to try and abuse. About half of high schoolers reported using marijuana at some point in their lives.

Homelessness Programs and Resources

Emphasize how drug use can affect the things that are important to your teen. Some examples might be sports performance, driving, health or appearance. Instead, listen to your teen’s opinions and questions about drugs. Parents can assure teens that they can be honest and have a discussion without getting in trouble. Or teens may order substances online that promise to help in sports competition, or promote weight loss.

This is one of the main reasons you need to have a conversation with your teen about drugs. As mentioned earlier, drug and alcohol abuse can negatively affect the teenage brain leading to problems well into their future. So if attempting to scare kids and telling them that just uttering the monosyllabic, two letter word ‘No‘ don’t work in preventing teenage substance abuse, pretty much nothing will, right? The most effective ways to prevent teenage substance abuse are well established but rarely implemented due to the ongoing infection of abstinence-only mores into our cultural consciousness. To date, efforts to prevent teenage substance abuse fell flat.