Troubled Teens Resources

Karen’s daughter Erin has just begun her high school career, entering the new school year as a freshman. A time that ought to be celebrated as an important threshold in a child’s life is now viewed with a great deal of trepidation by parents struggling with troubled teenagers. Karen had been concerned over some of the friends her daughter has been hanging out with at the end of eighth grade. She blew it off as just harmless teens with tattoos and rock star dreams.

Picking up her daughter after the first day of school, Karen was alarmed to see her standing around with the same tattooed kids who, if anything, looked more radical than they had last year. Erin immediately became belligerent when Karen questioned her about who they were.

Parents of young teens who have not yet dealt seriously with the issue of teenage drug abuse need to understand that an essential aspect of teen crisis intervention is for both the teen and parent to be educated about all aspects of drugs and drug culture.

If Karen’s suspicions that her daughter’s new friends do drugs, what signs should she look for? Trouble Teen.us offers some basic guidance. Follow the link to view the entire list of questions.

Are your teen’s friends concerned about him or her?
Has your teen ever returned home drunk?
Does your teen use marijuana?
Are there signs of heavier drug use?
Is your teen huffing?
Has your teen ever run away?
Is your teen sexually active?

Boot camps of a different sort, but none the less valuable, are fitness boot camps. A fitness boot camp directed at teens can benefit in numerous ways, but for the purposes of this post, we’ll focus on the emotional and psychological issues pertaining to body image.

Teen girls are very susceptible to the absurd and unreal images of waif-like creatures that the media parades in front of them. All troubled teenagers can suffer greatly from obesity and there are no end to the stories of overweight teens who have compensated for rejection and low self-esteem with drugs. Any teen help for getting fit is extremely beneficial.

Joyce Hoffmann has put together an excellent program directed at teen girls. Inspired by her own emotional eating as a teen, she has dedicated her life to working with overweight kids. She teaches teens to take control of their body and image via exercise, nutrition, yoga and counseling.

And all of that goes a long way towards circumventing the potential for teenage drug abuse. If you feel good physically, emotionally and mentally, getting “high” will bring you down. Not to mention the value of the physical and mental discipline that comes with exercise.

” Ms. Hoffmann customized a summer weight loss program for teen girls that was equal parts boot camp, phys-ed class and Dr. Phil therapy session…

“None of the girls missed a day, and they were never a minute late…After working out, the girls and Ms. Hofmann had group counseling, where they just talked — about themselves, dieting, body image, boys, whatever was on their minds….
[…]
Many of the girls realized they were emotional eaters, meaning they made a beeline for fattening foods, whether they were happy, sad or any mood in between.”

(Source)

Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder has more than one solution. More and more parents are looking for alternatives to Ritalin and other drugs designed to minimize the negative behavior associated with ADHD. Teen crisis intervention in this area has proven critical since statistics indicate that ADHD untreated can pave the way to teenage drug abuse, depression and rebellion.

A new software program designed to help troubled teenagers coping with ADHD. is now making it’s way to the US, having been in use for a time in Europe.

“Cogmed Working Memory Training is a home-based program that helps children with attention problems by training and increasing their working memory capacity. Clinically-proven results demonstrate that after training, children improve their ability to concentrate, control impulsive behavior and better utilize complex reasoning skills.1 In the end, better academic performance can be achieved especially in math and reading.”

Our Working Memory Training program is:

• Specifically designed for children with attention deficits
• Softwarebased
• Five weeks long
• Coachsupported
• Conducted at home with phonebased assistance
• Proven to be 80% effective

“Working memory” refers to the memory that we use everyday;short term memory. the ability to remain focused, retain instructions, etc. Studies indicate that increasing a teens “working memory” go towards ameliorating other difficulties associated with ADHD.

“Parents and teachers also report other benefits in daily life: improved social skills, taking initiative, remembering things and completing tasks like homework assignments more independently.”

(Source)

Teen boarding schools offer parents an alternative to the agenda driven public schools where often the talented, but emotionally troubled teen, receives little support or recognition of their gifts or skills. In fact, it is often that combination that can prove incendiary; intelligence and emotional problems. If the intelligence and uniqueness of an individual teen is not nurtured, they often fail to recognize it themselves, emphasizing only what they view as their failures.

“Just as everyone is born with a different finger print, every person needs to feel there is something unique about their existence. As a counselor, I try to help teens at risk …to find out where the “jewels” in their personality can be found.”

Troubled teenagers who are educated to deeply regard the value of life will also value their own life more. And if their education teaches them how to use their gifts to create a life they want, they are less likely to start down the road of teenage drug abuse.

“Even in the darkest of teenage minds, counselors and parents can uncover unpolished pearls. Just like diamond mining, jewels are sometimes hiding below the surface while others can be found by digging down deep. To reach out to a teenager, you need to act like a metal detector hovering over the sands of a beach, listening for the sounds of lost change or other treasures.”

(Source)

Troubled teenagers, unfortunately, are becoming just one of several categories of youth that are increasingly vulnerable to eventual teenage drug abuse. Where drug education was once directed primarily at junior and seniors in high school, it is now also encompassing kids from elementary school up.

One such program developed and offered by National Families in Action is Club HERO.

Club HERO, developed and tested under a 5-year grant from the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, provides a positive, nurturing atmosphere for middle-school children during the critical after-school hours.

Home Club HERO (Helping Everyone Reach Out) rewards students for
“doing their job” well with visible motivation. Students earn points for a variety of achievements and behaviors related to
school performance and participation in tasks at home. They then redeem the points for Club HERO incentives and gifts.

“The point collection system is fun and provides the incentive children need to make an extra effort,” says sixth-grade teacher Caitlin Sims.”

The program includes materials that demonstrate how the brain works with and without chemical influences, providing a sound basis for the warnings to avoid all temptations to get high, much like decades ago when pictures of smoke damaged lungs drove the anti-smoking movement into full gear. Seeing Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears perform as glamorous addicts do little to dissuade teens away from drug abuse but a vivid demonstration of how Oxycontin and alcohol are destroying their brains might.

One has to assume a diabolical mind is at work when imagining the men or women who actually take the time to develop new ways to package drugs. Do they stay up late at night figuring out how best to entice a kid to get hooked? Is it just a matter of marketing and profit? Whoever they are, and whatever depravity they possess, they have introduced yet another product that parents need to be aware of in their ongoing battle against teen age drug abuse. It is called cheese heroin.(click image to enlarge)

“At least 18 Dallas County teenagers have died from using cheese, a mixture of black tar heroin and powderized Tylenol PM tablets.

The deaths have been reported throughout the county. Most of the victims are male, and involve equal numbers of white and Hispanic youth. One girl who died was found with the phase “Cheese Please” scrawled on her body with a marker.”

What makes it all the more despicable is that it sells for as little as $2 per dose, making it affordable to the very, very young.

“The spread of cheese in schools has parents and law enforcement officials worried. Children as young as 11 have been caught with the concoction.”

It is of little reassurance that, for now, the new drug seems confined to Dallas. No doubt crack was confined to one segment of the country before it grew to be a plague. Here is what you need to be aware of.

• What is Cheese?
  Cheese is black-tar heroin and crushed Tylenol PM tablets. Drug abuse experts, doctors, and police say it’s highly addictive and very, very dangerous. Nearly 20 deaths have been linked to the drug in the last year.
• What does it look like?
  It’s a tan-colored powder that looks like parmesan cheese, hence the nickname. Dealers often sell it in small ziplock baggies or a folded piece of notebook paper.
• How is it taken?
  Kids usually snort the powder with a tube, straw, coffee stirrer or ballpoint pen casing.
• How do they afford it?
  One hit or “bump” can cost as little as $2.
• Who’s taking it?
  Both girls and boys, wealthy and poor. The drug has been found in more than a dozen Dallas ISD schools and in several surrounding suburbs.
• What are the symptoms?
  After inhaling cheese, users grow lethargic and drowsy, sometimes euphoric as the heroin enters their systems. They often seem disoriented or sleepy, and may complain of excessive thirst or hunger. Parents should watch for a child’s sudden change in grades and friends.

(Source)

Parents with troubled teens have their hands full and they certainly do not need manufacturers like Reef coming up with cutesy ideas like this one.

“Just in time for summer: flip-flops with a secret compartment for booze. “Kids wear flip-flops to school and all over the place,” said Mike Gimbel, former drug czar for Baltimore County and director of substance abuse education at Sheppard Pratt. “You would never know the kid was walking around with vodka in the bottom of their shoe.”

Manufactured by surf and sandal company Reef, the flip-flops can hold about one ounce of liquor in each shoe and come with a miniature funnel and measuring bar.
[..]
Pointing to the imprint of a mixer on the shoe’s sole and images of a metal flask on a tag — and the capacity of the canteen — Gimbel said the company is clearly promoting alcohol use.”
(Source)

Perhaps the folks at Reef need to read the statistics on teenage drug and alcohol abuse.

• Alcohol is the most commonly used drug among young people.
• Alcohol kills 6½ times more youth than all other illicit drugs combined.
• Youth who drink alcohol are 50 times more likely to use cocaine than young people who never drink alcohol.
• 40% of those who started drinking at age 14 or younger later developed alcohol dependence, compared with 10% of those who began drinking at age 0 or older.
• 65% of the youth who drink alcohol report that they get the alcohol they drink from family and friends.
• By the 8th grade, 5% of adolescents have consumed alcohol, 1% have smoked cigarettes, and 0% have used marijuana.
• 50% of high school seniors report drinking alcohol in the past 30 days with 32% report being drunk at least once in the same period.
• Drivers age 21–29 drive the greatest proportion of their miles drunk. (Miller et al., 1996c)
• Traffic crashes are the greatest single cause of death for all persons age 6–33. About 55% of these fatalities are alcohol-related crashes.

“Those engaged in battling meth and other drug use do so on different fronts. Some, like Not In Our Town and Friday Night Live, fight the war mostly through prevention and education.
[…]
Last year, at least 60 percent of kids arrested and convicted used drugs, said Brandon Thompson, Glenn County’s chief probation officer.”

One of the central tenets of the Not in Our Town philosophy is to target teen age drug abuse with a three pronged attack: prevention, intervention, and Treatment.

All too often the fight against teen age drug abuse is only engaged at the third stage - treatment. The objective of Not in Our Town is prevention and intervention through education, so that treatment is less and less needed.

Some feel the program’s message is too rough for pre-teens, but the program’s founder strongly differs.

“But part of the message, and the reason he wants to take it to younger kids, is to show how vulnerable they are. He illustrates that with a story about a 12-year-old boy who first got meth from a man who was looking for marijuana. The boy had pot and the man offered to trade meth for the weed. At the end of the story, he shows kids a picture of his son clinging to life three years later.

“This is when it gets real,” Bettencourt said. “I’ve been there, I know what I’m doing. This is not a game, not a Friday Night LIve skit, it’s real…”

In one presentation to a group a 6th graders, Bettencourt asked if they knew anyone who got high. Over a dozen kids raised their hands.

“They gave me the most descriptive, concise images of somebody using the drug,” he said. “It was bone-chilling to me.”
(source)

“I started on my course with alcohol and drugs at about the age of 13. I got drunk for the first time when my parents went out of town and I decided to raid their liquor cabinet…”

“I had several different techniques to cover up the signs I was using drugs. I pulled hats down over my eyes, I put gum in mouth to cover up my bad breath or I’d put Visine in my eyes to take away the redness completely…”

“Sometimes I wouldn’t go to school at all. It was really easy to get away with this because all I had to do was write a note from my mom, or steal passes from the office, fill them out and turn them back in. I found myself getting away with a lot more than I ever thought I would…”

This is some of the advice given by Brian, a young man who fell into teen age drug abuse a few years after he started drinking alcohol at 13. He was inspired to divulge all of the secretive methods troubled teens employ to cover their drug abuse after realizing how close he came to loosing his life. He attributes his new found respect for sobriety to an intervention arranged by his parents and conducted on the Dr. Phil show.

Sadly enough, he states that those parents who are the most trusting are usually the parents that suffer the most.

Below are more of his recommendations:

• The most trusting parents are the ones who are the easiest to take advantage of.
• Lock your liquor cabinet.
• Double check alarm systems.
• Check their bedrooms.
• Look closely at your child.
• Don’t think your child is too young to be exposed to drugs.
• Know who your child’s friends are.
• Consider where they get their drugs.
• Check your child’s attendance record at school.
• Are you paying for your child’s drugs?
• Check your child’s vehicle after a Friday or Saturday night.
• Look through their pockets, purses, wallets and backpacks.
• Give your kids a random drug test.
• Look for signs.
• Develop an open, strong and trusting relationship with your child, one without judgment.

(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.