Troubled Teens Resources

At 16 tears of age Jimmy found himself the sole member of his family living in the a large ranch home located in one of the wealthiest suburbs in his city. His parents’ divorce had scattered his small family, with his father staying primarily in an apartment in town and his mother living in her new condo.

Always a high achiever whose intelligence had him on an accelerated academic schedule in school, he was considered an exceptionally capable and mature teen. His parents saw no problem with allowing the at-risk teenager to finish school in his childhood home in the neighborhood where all of his friends lived. They called it an early inheritance and felt that day to day supervision handled by a governess would be sufficient until he went off to college.

What Jimmy’s parents were unaware of is that Jimmy had been abusing prescription drugs for over two years. It had started with pilfering his mother’s supply of anti-depressants. His mother had also taken to smoking pot, a habit she thought she had successfully concealed from her son. As it turns out, her supply became the source of his first experimentation with the drug.

The ultimate result was that Jimmy had become a high functioning teenage drug addict, successfully developing a small drug trade that catered exclusively to his wealthy teenage companions. He was successful in hiding his drug abuse and his status as the local go-to dealer while still maintaining excellent grades and a seemingly quiet social life. His life of subterfuge and addiction may have gone unnoticed if he hadn’t been busted in an undercover operation that had taken place at his school.

When asked why he would jeopardize all he had, he stated he didn’t see that any of it mattered much anyway. His achievements didn’t mean anything to him, his life felt pointless, his father’s success a joke.

Teenage drug abuse knows no boundaries, monetary or societal. All teenagers are at risk to succumbing to despair and depression and the subsequent drug abuse it often leads to.

If you are a parent who feels that affluence is sufficient barrier against drug abuse, a well recommended book is
The Price of Privelege by Madeline Levine.