Troubled Teens Resources

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)

Pharming isn’t farming and your medicine cabinet is being robbed as a result of it. In yet another testament to the irrational thought processes that seem to accompany all teen age drug abuse, kids are now participating in an event known as “pharming”.

What that means is that all the teens in a given group will raid their parents medicine cabinets for samples from every prescription pill bottle there. Yes, every single one. The kids then meet and throw all their goods in the middle of a table to pick through and select for that evenings hoped for high.

No discretion is used, no concerns over the effect of combining incompatible drugs, and yes, deaths have occurred from the inevitable overdoses.

“Reports of trading the drugs have also been reported in cases whereby the participant knows that they have something that is of a high value. But for the most part, it is nothing more than a Russian roulette except the gun has been replaced by Mom and Dad’s medications. It might give them a high alright, but it also might kill them. A large number of drug overdoses, including overdoses that have resulted in death, have been reported by law enforcement agencies over the last few years.”
(Source)

The appeal lies in the fact that little effort is needed to acquire these drugs and there is little possibility of being arrested, unless the inevitable tragedy occurs.

Unfortunately, today’s medicine cabinets usually provide the troubled teen with a packed menu of anti-depressants, prescription cold medicine and left over pain pills from a root canal.

Many a troubled teen has had their fist drug courtesy of an old prescription from Mom or Dad. Common sense dictates that in the continuing battle against teenage drug abuse, the family medicine chest must now be under lock and key.