Troubled Teens Resources

What do you do when you find that your teen is using drugs?  It is becoming more of a reality for parents in today’s society.  Some parents are shocked to find that their child is abusing drugs or alcohol.  The “rest of the story” is sometimes even more disturbing.  A teen that is abusing drugs has to be buying them with something.  Initially a troubled teen will steal money from parent’s siblings and other extended family members.  When they get caught doing this they are forced to become more creative to support their new habit.  Some teens turn to selling drugs, prostitution, or burglary to purchase the drugs they need.

If a teen opts to sell drugs he is introduced to his drug dealers’ source.  The more he sells the higher up he can go until he is no longer dealing with kids from his school or neighborhood.  He has entered the world of dangerous criminals that will seriously hurt anyone that crosses them or doesn’t pay them.  It can make a parent shutter to think about the possibilities this scenario could have.  Needless to say, their child is in over their head.  In many cases the child doesn’t even realize the danger his life is in.  It may be difficult to remove a child from a situation like this.  It is possible however, but much caution and certainly police involvement should be obtained. It may be necessary to move your child far away from the negative friends and drug dealers that he is hanging around with.  Parents have found help by moving their teen to Tipton Academy in Tipton Kansas.  The remote location is ideal for making positive changes.  It is unlikely that any of your child’s “friends” will travel very far to help them making Tipton’s remote location even more attractive.  When a troubled teen is removed from his circle of so called friends there are very few that will even inquire about where he is. 

TiptonAcademy has helped many youth learn positive behaviors through the positive peer pressure techniques used there.  If you have teen that is treading in dangerous waters give them a call they can help 877 968 8443.  Tipton Academy has been in business for almost 4 years and they have successfully helped many families to get back together.  If you would like to talk to one of the parents of Tipton Academy students, give them a call.

The world of today’s adolescents isn’t all about teen age drug abuse. A frustrated teen helps put another perspective out there afterbeing disappointed in discovering that a search for teen topics produced some unpleasant Google results.

It seems that Google associates the word ‘teenager’ most often with; addiction, drugs, alcohol, binge drinking, sex and violence. You know, the usual array of topics covered here. Because they do reflect an unhappy reality. But is also true that teens really are most associated with negatives, not only in what the press chooses to cover, but in the way that Hollywood chooses to portray them.

In order to set the record straight, the young writer offers the following statistics, and also asks that we give teenagers “a chance. Listen to our half of the story. You never know; we just might surprise you.”

“According to Josh McDowell and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services:

• “43 percent (of teenagers) talk to family or friends about religious matters in a typical day, (and) 41 percent talk to family or friends about politics in a typical day.” (1998)

• “70 percent of teens have daily conversations with their mothers about an important issue in their life.” (1998)

• “More than 90 percent of young people (16-19-year-olds) are either enrolled in school or employed, and 27 percent are both enrolled in school and employed.” (2003)

• “Teens describe themselves as: happy (92 percent); responsible (91 percent); self reliant (86 percent); optimistic about my future (82 percent); very intelligent (79 percent); and physically attractive (74 percent).”
(source)

Teen age drug abuse is fought on different battlegrounds with different weapons by all kinds of different warriors. By far the most passionate are those who have lost a loved one to drug abuse. Second to them are those former addicts who have beaten back their demons and want to help other addicts in their fight. When that former addict is a well known rock star, troubled teens tend to listen.

Alice Cooper is one such well known name and now comes Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx and his new released chronicle about the horrors of his life as a heroin addict,’The Heroin Diaries, a Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star.’

Part visceral work of art, part howl of anguish and pain, the book chronicles the life and technical death (Sixx actually overdosed and was pronounced dead twice) of a guy who supposedly had it all and did his best every day to destroy it and the talent that brought it to him.

“It was important to show it all,” Sixx said. “I was legally declared dead from an overdose and instead of learning from it I lived to do it again. That’s how sick I was. It’s not cool. It’s not being a rock star. It’s being an addict.”
[…]
“I wanted to do everything I could to get this story out to people, whether it’s to read the book or listen to the music,” Sixx said. “I was asleep and in pain for so long. Now I’m truly awake and it feels amazing and I want people to hear that through whatever medium it takes.”
(source)

Teen age drug abuse quickly descends into addiction if the first forays into experimentation are not quickly cut short.Teens at risk for addiction are not always easily identifiable, though those who seek drugs as refuge from depression or anger are more likely to fall into addiction than those teens who are more emotionally stable.

A teen heroin addict is all the more tragic. For a troubled teen to seek the quiet stillness of heroin’s slow suicide over family, love, and life is beyond the comprehension of those who helplessly watch.

That a teen addict can destroy the lives of those who love them is dramatically demonstrated by a recent case that came before a judge in Great Britain.

“A desperate dad risked his own freedom to take drugs to his heroin addict son inside prison.

William Thompson had already re-mortgaged his home to pay for detox programmes and suffered the break-up of his marriage during his son’s decade long addiction to the deadly drug.

But the devoted father went a step further on December 2 last year when he risked his own liberty after a phone call from his son begging for help.
[…]

The court heard how taking drugs into prison is ordinarily met by an immediate jail term.

But Mr Recorder Martin Bethel today took pity on Thompson and suspended his sentence.

Defence barrister Glen Gatland had told the court: “He has done everything a father could possibly do to try and wean his son off this terrible, terrible curse he has.”

(source)

Teen age drug abuse is not a simple straight forward proposition. A myriad of factors can contribute to teens at risk saying yes to drugs. Very often divorce is the galvanizing factor in a teen’s descent into addiction.

“Hull said she was depressed “about anything and everything.” She was dealing with stress from her broken family and hadn’t gotten over the death of a childhood friend. She also bounced around, sometimes living with her dad, and then her mom, and then her boyfriend’s parents’ house.”

Combined with peer pressure, a culture that, more and more, tacitly accepts drug abuse and the unfortunate ease with which teens can secure prescription drugs, it is very easy for a disturbed teen to succumb to the constant temptation to do drugs.

“She also thinks she did drugs “just for the lifestyle I guess.”

“I wanted to be the life of the party,” she said. “I liked it when I could get drugs for people.”

In school, she would see other teens pass drugs to each other under the table or in between a piece of paper to make it look like a note. At one point, she said, she took some of her dad’s pain pills without him knowing, but it made her sick.”

Parents in the midst of divorce are often to caught up in their own drama to see how deeply affected their troubled teenagers might be. Never assume your teen is impervious to the lure of drugs.

He was surprised when his daughter got caught up in “bad choices.”

“I didn’t think she’d go that route because of her gifts and talents and what she could do…”

(Source)

Teen crisis intervention programs have been organized nation wide in an effort to stem the tide of teen age crime and drug abuse. One such popular program, Drug Court, has had measurably good success with re-offenders.

The cycle of drug abuse is rarely ended after the first cycle of rehab for many teenagers. A run through a boot camp or brat camp, if there are even any available, is rarely enough in hard core cases. It is difficult to equip a teen to deal with the pervasive influence of drugs if they live in the midst of a neighborhood that is rife with dealers and gangs. Teen programs such as Drug Court give teens a last chance to reform before the system swallows them up.

“Teenagers who repeatedly land in juvenile court for drug- and alcohol-related crimes have a new opportunity to get clean.
[..]
The program aims to reduce recidivism and teach teenagers how to be responsible human beings with no drug or alcohol abuse…
[…]
Drug court, which takes between 12 and 18 months to complete, consists of five phases, each a bit less intense than the last.

Offenders accepted into the drug court program suffer from addiction and, without serious intervention, they risk being taken from their homes and put in a youth center for in-patient treatment.
[…]

Offenders with diagnosed substance abuse or dependency who need treatment with a juvenile record are eligible for the program. The substance abuse treatment is done through the Washington County Health Department, Bricker said.
[…]
“It’s a last-ditch effort prior to going to placement,” said Cherity Shahan of the Department of Juvenile Services.”

(Source)

Teens at risk quite often experience depression and just as often parents throw their hands up in the air and exclaim, “What in the world do you have to be depressed about?”

Bad idea. First you discount their pain and if you do that often enough, troubled teenagers will start to hide that hurt or sorrow and then it will really start doing some damage hidden when away from the light of day. True enough, next to a mortgage and bills and a job that grinds your very life away, a teen’s problems can certainly appear insignificant to a parent.

That is when parents have to employ some empathy and remember that in the scale of a teen’s world, a rejection from a friend or a sneer from the popular kids is tantamount to the mortgage getting behind. Teens usually really do not “get” that they have much to be grateful for because a good percentage of suburban teens have had little understanding of poverty or disease or those experiences that makes one grateful to have just survived to live another day.

Even if the depressed teen has blown a mole hole of a problem into a mountain of drama, the resulting depression, untreated, can lead a teen to self medicate, and therein lies the path to teen age drug abuse. If your teen has expressed sorrow or even jokingly proclaimed that life is to hard and not worth it, take care to make sure that there isn’t a deeper root to explore.

Sometimes troubled teenagers think that what actually constitutes teen age drug abuse and addiction is up for debate. Ask them to answer yes or no to the following questions just to see how they perceive addiction.

No online questionnaire is going to suffice for professional counseling for teens at risk, but actually seeing how your teenager perceives addiction might give you an opportunity to educate them. There are no wrong or right answers in this exercise , just an opportunity to see the extent of drug awareness your teen exhibits.

1. Do you sometimes get angry or disappointed at yourself for not being able to quit using drugs?
2. Do you undergo personality changes or mood swings related to your drug use?
3. Do you sometimes put using drugs ahead of your significant relationships in your life?
4. When you use drugs, does it take more to get you high than it used to?
5. Have you ever been in trouble with the law due to drug use, for driving, possession of drugs, selling or other drug related activity?
6. Has your drug use caused fights and arguments with family members or friends?
7. Does using drugs make you feel depressed, angry, or upset?
8. Have you broken promises to yourself that you will quit or cut back on your drug use?
9. Has a major area of your life been negatively affected by your drug use (work, close relationships, health, school, self esteem)?
10. Are most of your friends into using drugs?
11. Do you find it necessary to lie to employers, relatives or friends in order to hide your drug use?
12. Have you ever thought that you have a drug problem?
13. Has your sleep been significantly affected by drug use (either sleeping too much or not getting enough sleep)?
14. Have you ever been encouraged by others, whom you trust, to stop or cut back on your drug use?
15. Have you ever wished that you could talk to someone who could understand your drug-related problems and offer real help?

(Source)

My nephew lives in Montana where officials are in a battle against the worst infestation of meth production and addiction in the country. It turns out that teen boarding schools are growing in popularity there. Teen age drug abuse takes on an entirely different and menacing complexion when the drug is meth.

My nephew reported that two neighbors have opted to send their teens to a private boarding school because of the overwhelming prevalence of meth and meth culture in their community.

His neighbor made a very sad observation: “It began to seem like I was sending my daughter off to war every time she drove off to school. These meth addicts are dangerous, violent and they are everywhere.”

“Karen, whose parents were both addicts, grew up around drugs. She recalls as a child picking her father’s used needles off the floor.

She started shooting and smoking cocaine before progressing to methamphetamines.

The first time she shot up she was 16.

As she speaks, she rubs blotches of facial acne.

“This is the drug coming out of my system,” she says, noting meth has also started to burn holes through her nose.

Despite developing pockets of infection throughout her body, she still craved the drug, she says.
[…]
“I’ve been raped numerous times. You’re bought and sold but nobody cares,” she says. “I was sold by boyfriends to support their habits.”

She says she willingly gave up custody of her children because she knew her drug habit was hurting them.

Though not yet 30, she says she felt “too old to change.”

(Source)

That is what has become so unnerving. Addiction is now becoming two and three generations deep, each disintegrating family perpetuating the poison of drugs from one generation to the next, weakening, inch by inch, the social fabrics of entire communities.

Teen age drug abuse never looked so good now that the current crop of young Hollywood teens are seemingly intent on spotlighting advertising their version of it. The lovely chalet, pictured here, is where those who can afford it go for “rehab” and is rumored to be where young Lindsay Lohan is.

“According to sources within the facility, the 21-year-old star arrived this weekend to begin the intense rehabilitation program that is expected to last a minimum of 30 days….upon check-in, a thorough mental and physical examination is completed. Once assessed, clients go through a traditional 12-step system and experiential therapies

The Lodge was named by Town & Country magazine to be one of the country’s top rehabs. For a price tag of $30,000 and up, the rehab offers privacy — with rooms for 16 residents at a time. The Lodge boasts spectacular views of mountain ranges and waterfalls; Jacuzzi tubs and private fireplaces, horseback riding therapy, massage therapy, hydro therapy and even a hair salon with manicures!

But that’s not all. The Lodge even owns a helicopter called “Rainbow” and arranges “heli-hiking” tours, and features gourmet meals prepared by culinary school graduates. There’s also a sound stage that was once the home of the “Donny and Marie” show, which now houses the most effective challenge ropes course in the world.

(Source)

It really doesn’t matter if it is luxurious rehabs or bare-bones boot camps, what guarantees any troubled teenagers‘ success in kicking is to bottom out, re-evaluate and recognize the severity of the problem. Without that, neither rainbow helicopters nor gourmet meals will make one bit of difference. One sincerely hopes that Miss Lohan will truly find her way home.