Troubled Teens Resources

Teen crisis intervention campaigns directed at college students try to educate both parents and students about the dangers of taking drugs prescribed for Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder recreationally. Unfortunately, Adderall has taken it’s place next to Ritalin and Oxycontin as the favored prescription that college teens abuse.

“Most popularly, Adderall has become a cheap fix for millions of college students and various other young adult professionals with places to go and people to see.”

Unfortunately these teens also combine Adderrall with alcohol, the combination allowing them to be drunkenly alert, one supposes. It seems to produce a high that they relish and the dangers inherent in mixing drugs are, as usual, ignored.

“Adderall is also used by those who want to stay up all night partying and don’t feel that they can do it of their own volition. This provides for a most dangerous combination: Adderall, a stimulant, and alcohol, a depressant, do not mix well. The medication provides a feeling of mental clarity and alertness that one does not necessarily have in actuality after imbibing for hours. This means that you don’t feel as drunk as you actually are, and that you wake up with a hangover from the depths of hell, spit straight out of Persephone’s lair, if you can manage to fall asleep in the first place (and wake up afterward).”

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And then you crash. Crashing is the term used for the experience of “coming down” off a drug. It is usually what triggers a search for more because it is extremely unpleasant. And that is one of the many ways addiction begins.

Teens at risk seldom see themselves that way. The typical arrogance and sense of omnipotence that is characteristic of teens can easily lead them into making some down right idiotic decisions. Such as knowingly taking drugs that they are, indeed, convinced are harmful, but they choose to risk their health and lives anyway.

Especially noted for casual abuse are cough medicines. According to this young man’s account, they are the most easily obtained, and the easiest to conceal.

“The drug used to be completely legal for a 15-year-old to buy in the store. If not to buy, it was easy enough to steal… It was easy to tell my mother that I had a cough or that I felt like I was coming down with something, and she never asked about the empty bottles. The effects of the drug are mostly sensory: tunnel vision, hyper-sensitivity to touch and movement, etc. It takes the right circumstances and doses to produce hallucinations. In other words, it takes very little to act straight in front of authority types and there is little physical evidence of intoxication: No smell, you don’t slur your words. Your face gets red and your eyes dilate, but other than that…”

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Though it may weary a parent to continue to be made aware of all the subterfuge that they must see through when dealing with teen age drug abuse, teen help aids and information for this specific drug abuse are becoming increasingly available. We posted earlier on the efforts being expended by “Five Moms”, a group of mothers who organized to combat cough medicine abuse and were the source of inspiration for the young man above to write about his own experiences of as a teen.

“…the first two seasons of Intervention, viewers have been introduced to the enormous redneck crackhead who punched out his father; the teen meth addict working as a stripper; the single mom suffering from bulimia; and the young alcoholic father. Multiple or combined addictions are frequent on Intervention. Witness the gay man addicted to both sex and cocaine, or the tightly wound woman whose gambling binges are fuelled by crystal meth…”

Not to trivialize the stories of the families featured on Intervention, but you can’t help but notice that the themes of each of these individual’s real lives sound like the old and familiar scripts written for countless one hour dramas. It makes one pause to wonder what is it about humans that have us incessantly exchanging tales of woe, to seemingly linger over the inescapable fact that being human is often a painful proposition. One could hope that such intense fascination could instead be focused on healthy, thriving human beings. However, I don’t think a reality show that follows the lives of happy and productive families is on the horizon.

The jury is out as to how much good it does any of us to witness the ravages of drug and sundry other addictions in a reality format. The portraits of pain in these interventions are stark but we have seen it all before. In fact, without the grace of Hollywood lighting and makeup, real pain is ugly and clumsy. Unlike actors who facilely deliver polished dialog, real people sputter, spit and grope for words and anger is inarticulate and bruising.

If the series Intervention serves to encourage a broken family to seek help or to dissuade a troubled teenager from taking drugs, it can’t be dismissed. The danger is in trivializing both the concept of interventions and to keep America focused on broken people without enough attention paid to the broken people who do heal and carry on successful lives.

Unlike the series which typically ends with a decision - yay or nay - to therapy, the therapies and rehab programs that interventions set the stage for are merely the first tentative steps on a very hard, often boring, road to productive living. However, no camera will linger on an ex-addict struggling to learn basic life skills, like writing a budget, keeping a clean house or showing up regularly for work.

“But does it work? Intervention has been criticized by some health professionals for sensationalism and its drive-through approach to addiction counselling…And then there’s the woeful absence of follow-up…. There are no statistics provided on how many of the addicts successfully completed their rehabilitation and the program rarely revisits its case studies. All noble intent aside, Intervention lacks closure.”
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There has to be more stories that emphasize that not only do humans being become terribly broken, they can be terribly fierce about rebuilding what is broke.

That is what a real intervention is for, a first step in a fierce fight for life.