Troubled Teens Resources

Your teenager:” Tonight’s gonna be hot. I’m having some cupcakes and, I think my body needs some Vitamin K”

Teenaged friend: “Dude - you stacking it? Man that’s gonna take an interplanetary mission. I’ll just stick with number 9. Glad I just got an ice cream habit, I’d be broke dude.”

If you overheard your teenager in the above dialog, you wouldn’t be listening to a discussion about diet. In fact, those basically nonsensical string of words probably wouldn’t register with most parents.

But if your teen’s conversations with friends are frequently interspersed with unusual words or phrases, I’d suggest you start Googling.

Substance abuse will educate your teenagers in the methods of stealth and secrecy. Often times,drug or alcohol abuse will have been going on for months before a parent recognizes something is off with their teenager.

It does a parent good to be prepared to recognize the signs of substance abuse long before even a hint of possible drug use surfaces. The signs and clues are there and the parent of a troubled teen simply needs to be aware of the language of addiction.

Below is a drug vocabulary test. Can you translate what these terms mean?

• Cupcakes
• Stacking
• Vitamin K
• ice cream habit
• interplanetary mission
• Kleenex
• Brewery
• Number 9
• Bumblebees
• Gangster

“The Adolescent Substance Abuse Knowledge Base will go far to furthering a parents education.

“When it comes to teen substance abuse, it seems like we’re always playing catch up. Anytime a new drug hits the streets, its popularity soars, and we find ourselves fighting against it. At the same time, drugs that have been around for years sometimes rise sharply and unexpectedly in popularity. Why is that? There seems to be no rhyme or reason to either the increase, or decrease, in drug use among teens. Though certain trends have been discovered over the years, the cause of those trends seems a mystery.”

See how you did on your drug vocabulary quiz here.