Troubled Teens Resources

Death recruits dedicated soldiers in the war against teen age drug abuse. Bereaved parents galvanized to action by the deaths of their sons and daughters have been responsible for creating countless programs for troubled teens and campaigns directed at educating teens and parents about drug addiction and culture.

One father, devastated by the accidental overdose of his 19 year old son, has taken his battle closer to the front lines by establishing DAMMAD (Dads And Mad Moms Against Drug-Dealers), dedicated to busting the dealer by providing a means for citizens to leave anonymous tips.

“Since founding DAMMAD following the death of his 19 year old son from a prescription drug overdose in January 2001, Steven Steiner Sr. and his wife Julie have provided law enforcement with over 2600 tips, resulting in 77arrests and 37 convictions in states including Georgia, Maine, New York, Pennsylvania,South Carolina and Mississippi. So far $10,100.00 dollars in reward money has been paid to tipsters.”

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Such efforts have become even more valuable when everyday citizens sometimes are too frightened to contact the police. In the world of hip hop, street cred is partly predicated on not providing evidence of a crime to the police. Certain super stars in that world are spearheading a campaign that has resulted in intimidating willing witnesses from testifying. Websites like these serve to provide a very safe route for the transmission of tips that can lead to taking a few dealers and ‘gangstas’ off the street.

Don’t let death be the inspiration for you to be active in your community. Find the local anti-drug programs that are doing a good job and support them. They are fighting for your teenagers, too.

Do you feel blindsided? You just went through your son’s bedroom, you were only picking up laundry, and there it was. What is it, a stash, is that what they call it? You don’t know the lingo of teen age drug abuse yet but you do know your pain pills when you see them. And you know damn well that’s pot.

You look around the room at the trophies, the photos of him on the swim team, his awards. You just had a great golf outing with him. What in blue blazes is going on?

Some parents are just plain irresponsible. They don’t see casual drug use as any more than a rite of passage. But then there are those conscientious and dedicated parents who did it right, they feel that they have a good relationship with their kids. The possibility of their teen using drugs just didn’t ever seem possible.

“By all accounts, Jimmie Moyer was a typical American kid. He played sports, his family took vacations together, there was nothing – nothing at least immediately visible – to suggest that he was at risk for drug addiction.

But around the time he was 12 years old, Owens said, Jimmie began to smoke pot. Over an extended period of time, his drug of choice changed to methamphetamine and his usage soared, to the point where he was using significant amounts per day.”
[…]
After a long battle with methamphetamine addiction, he came to his family asking for help in his own personal war against the drug. His family sent him to a recovery facility out-of-state to separate him for the drug dealers and users that he knew.

Six days into that recovery program, he took his life.”

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That teens at risk have trouble comprehending cause and effect and the concept of consequences comes as no surprise. But now teenagers are dealing with drugs that have consequences beyond their own lives. I wonder if they would feel anymore compelled to stay far removed from any teen age drug abuse if they were made to understand that they themselves could one day - though they never planned to - give birth to children that they will be forced, because of their addiction, to abandon.

“Children of drug addicts live a terrible existence, deprived of stable and nurturing parents from the moment that they are conceived. It’s a problem so pervasive that Australia is even considering the forcible removal of children from addicted parents.

Young children of drug-addicted parents should be forcibly adopted out, said an Australian parliamentary report that cites children dying in the custody of addict parents or being abandoned to eat dog food.

But the report drew widespread criticism on Friday from anti-drug campaigners, who called it draconian and harmful in the fight against drugs.

The report on the impact of drugs on families recommended adoption as a “default care option” for children aged under five who come to the attention of child protection agents through their parents’ drug addiction.”
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Teenagers always swear that they will never treat their own children as poorly as they imagine that they are being treated. Perhaps they could be made to understand that, because of their addictions, that they will likely treat their future children to a life that is far worse.

Teen crisis intervention starts long before your teenager reaches adolescence. Reports indicate that kids as young as nine and ten are choosing to play around with drugs. For good or ill, celebrities like Lindsay Lohan and the thoroughly disgraced Britney Spears can serve as a lesson for your young teens. It’s obvious that they can no longer serve as role models but they can teach teens at risk that drugs can destroy even the best and brightest.

That is one mother dealt with her daughter’s disappointment with Lindsay Lohan.

“I thank Lindsey Lohan for forcing me giving me the opportunity to talk to Ellie about the dangers of drugs and alcohol. It’s a conversation I might have saved for later, when she was a bit older, but thanks to the widely reported exploits of this girl, Ellie now has a basic understanding of addiction and the difficulties of recovery.

I am not sure exactly how Ellie found out about Lindsay Lohan’s troubles, but she did. And the look on her face as I explained what happened to her broke my heart. I know Ellie has to grow up sometime and learn about these things, and common wisdom has it that the earlier you begin these conversations, the better off your kids will be. But try as I might, I can’t put a positive spin on the reality that Ellie’s childlike adoration of Lindsay Lohan turned into an innocence-shattering lesson about poor parenting and bad choices.”

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And that is the best thing you can do when your teen’s idols are busted for drugs - use it as a life lesson, a demonstration of how drug addiction can ruin the lives of young people who have everything to live for.

Teen crisis intervention is usually not the purview of United Way. Long recognized for their work with the poor and homeless, the only contact they generally have with troubled teenagers is in that context. However, so impressed were they with the community’s concerns about drug addiction that they want to tackle that too.

“Brian Sipe, board president of the UWA, announced earlier this week that the organization would solicit proposals from nonprofit, governmental, educational and law enforcement agencies interested in garnering support for initiatives geared toward having a positive impact on substance abuse issues in Aroostook.
[…]
The UWA’s decision to gather the proposals comes on the heels of findings received from the organization’s first-ever communitywide assessment project… Substance abuse was tagged as a major worry for community members, according to the assessment. Respondents expressed anxiety about the toll drug abuse and addiction has taken on communities. They also feared newer, more dangerous drugs eventually would arrive…
[…]
“Everywhere we went, from the southernmost tip of Aroostook to the northernmost tip, we heard concerns about substance abuse,” Stevens, the executive director of the UWA, said Wednesday. “As a board, we read through the community assessment and we realized that there is a great deal of concern about this issue, but it is not something that we are really putting a lot of money into as an agency at this point.”

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Attention deficit hyperactive disorder can set an at risk teen up for a fall if left undiagnosed. Or so it seems when hearing the story from a neighbor, Jean.

“I didn’t have a clue about ADD until my son was diagnosed. I’ve heard that a lot - parents discovering they had ADD that way - through studying their kid. Anyway, the first thing I was concerned about was that he would do what I did. I didn’t realize at the time, when I was a kid, that so much of my anxiety and frustration wasn’t normal.

But now, when I look back and remember going through my moms medicine cabinet and finding her diet pills and thinking I found heaven. The clarity and the relief - well, i can remember it to this day. And I think that was when I started self medicating and ended up using speed - well, that’s what they called meth back then. I was so grateful for Jason’s diagnosis. He doesn’t have to fall in the same trap.”

Jean’s trap lasted 16 years before she finally quit using drugs of all kinds at age 29. Back then there wasn’t nearly the amount of information on either ADHD or teen age drug abuse that there is today. Schools for troubled teens were not as proliferous and any type of teen age drug abuse was usually treated in a psychiatric hospital as a mental illness.

Testing your teenager for ADD doesn’t mean that you have to subject he or she to Ritalin. Jean worked with her son’s ADD with nutrition and classes that focused on teaching him to work with his condition.

Boarding schools are not the last resort for parents dealing with teen age drug abuse. Boarding schools, in many instances, are very often the best and wisest choice to deal with troubled teenagers. Many teens at risk go through out-patient drug rehab programs successfully, yet relapse a few months later. A primary cause for relapse is that they return to the same environment and friends ill equipped to deal with the influences that triggered their drug addiction to begin with.

A troubled teen boarding school or a military boarding school extracts the teen completely from the destructive social scene, school and friends that contributed to the start of a troubled teen’s addiction. An addict needs time and opportunity to gain an identity unrelated to their drug addicted past. They also need to time to develop the coping skills and inner strength to resist the temptations that will present themselves from their old life.

“A person who enters detox at a clinic would face strong reminders if he went back to his community and friends.

An alcoholic might go to a bar with his friends planning to be the designated driver, only to relapse. Or a drug user might think he’s going to his dealer’s house just to talk, Stewart said.

But the old environment and friends usually don’t support recovery, he said.

“It’s important to replace them with new friends who are trying to do more things with their life than being an alcoholic or user,” Stewart said.”

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Teen help is seriously hampered by Hollywood celebrities making drug addiction appear to be a walk in the park. Britney will make another album, Lindsay Lohan will make another movie , so what is the big deal? Parents of out of control teens may be wondering if it is even worth their time to put their teen into a drug rehab program. If you use Hollywood as a measuring stick, money spent on rehab certainly appears wasted.

Why bother to enroll your teen into a troubled teen boarding school or any other program if Spears and Lohan are an example. No, rehab doesn’t work all the time and the most compelling reason it fails is because the individual addict has not fully committed to the program. Parents of teens at risk who are undergoing the arduous search to place their teen need not despair at the apparent failures such as Britney and Lindsay.

“..experts say that the more permissive attitude of high-end residential programs is primarily a reflection of the demands of a new generation of affluent addicts, more pampered and less inclined to endure the tough-minded approach of the past.”

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For those who have finally put the demon of addiction behind them, the fallacy in pampering the addict is evident. Consequences are a big factor in making an addict realize the seriousness of their actions and choices. Most understand that you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Addiction is a complex malady and solutions for long term sobriety vary according to the individual and the addiction.

Despite the variables in treating drug addicts, what is universal is that no addict can be helped if they refuse to recognize that they have a problem. If rehab serves to pamper instead of teach the hard lessons of addiction, the likelihood of relapse seems inevitable.

Teens at risk for drug or alcohol abuse often display behavior that parents fail to recognize as indicators for addiction. Some troubled teenagers are able to mask their use. It is not unusual for a troubled teen to steal or sell family items in order to feed a drug addiction that had spun out of control. Some teenagers develop connections with low level dealers and start supplying their friends at school.

Teens abusing drug , for the most part, have deceived themselves into thinking that they can handle anything that the drug can do to them. They are almost always certain they can walk away from drugs anytime. By the time unaware parents realize that their teen is addicted, much damage has already been done.

Some signs of drug abuse follow:

• Hiding use; lying and covering up
• Sense that the person will “do anything” to use again regardless of consequences
• Loss of control or choice of use (drug-seeking behavior)
• Loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities
• Emotional instability
• Hyperactive or hyper-aggressive
• Depression
• Missing school or work
• Failure to fulfill responsibilities at school or work
• Complaints from teachers or co-workers
• Reports of intoxication at school or work
• Furtive or secretive behavior
• Avoiding eye contact
• Locked doors
• Going out every night
• Change in friends or peer group
• Change in clothing or appearance
• Unusual smells on clothing or breath
• Heavy use of over-the-counter preparations to reduce eye reddening, nasal irritation, or bad breath
• Hidden stashes of alcohol
• Alcohol missing from your supply
• Prescription medicine missing
• Money missing
• Valuables missing
• Disappearances for long periods of time
• Running away
• Secretive phone calls
• Unusual containers or wrappers

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Troubled teenagers seem to quickly learn how to conceal their illegal activities from adults. They cover for one another, they help each other obtain drugs and they lie to adults without blinking an eye. And no one is really paying that much attention to the big picture. Perhaps if parents started looking at the big picture and start communicating with each other, their teens would have a much more difficult time keeping under the radar.

Teen crisis intervention works best when initiated at the grass roots level. There is much to be said for the positive results that can be obtained when parents throw their combined voices and resources against teen age drug abuse.

At least that is how this group of parents see it.

“In the Royal Oak home of Kirk and Catherine Goddard, about a dozen friends and neighbors gathered around a 27-inch television and settled in for an evening of pizza, salad, soda, movie watching and friendly conversation.

But the show and conversation were far from light.

The Goddards wanted to talk about the community’s drug problem. The DVD they showed was an emotional — and telling — documentary, “Addiction,” from HBO.

“It sounds weird when you say you’re having a house party to talk about drug addiction,” Catherine Goddard, 52, said last month. “But once you understand what it’s all about, you want to sign up.”

It is that simple. You know who your teenager’s friend’s parents are, and if you don’t, it is time to find out. It takes little effort to get the materials.

“The idea of having house parties to discuss drug addiction is being promoted by AddictionAction.org, a spin-off of two national groups, the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America and Faces and Voices of Recovery. After HBO aired its documentary on addiction March 15, the group’s Web site began encouraging parents and community organizations to screen and discuss the film in small groups.”
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If you really want to make a difference in the lives of teenagers, this is a good place to start.