Adolescent Drug Abuse Drug abuse a

Drug abuse among teens may be symptomatic of underlying societal pathology. Perhaps it is a backlash against living in a cold, big, impersonal, technological society. Drug use may be a barometer of social ills or a cultural lag that happens as a generation learns how to live harmoniously with chemical substances. For the purposes of this paper, fourteen sources concerning adolescent drug abuse were overviewed which will be summarized in the remainder of the paper.

Some information reviewed concerns itself with the reasons for adolescent drug abuse. Drug Education: Content and Methods by Girdano and Girdano, a textbook for educating youth for intelligent handling of drugs, proposes numerous reasons for drug use--alienation, group pressure, easy availability, curiosity, spiritualism, boredom, escape, pleasure, and a hopeless view of the world today. The text discusses in detail the various types of drugs including alcohol, marijuana, the hallucinogens, amphetamines, barbiturates, and the opiates, as well as legal issues and specific effects on the body.

Adolescent Worlds: Drug Use and Athletic Activity by M. F. Stuck discusses in detail the possible relationship between adolescent drug use and participation in sports. According to this work, there is a popular myth that sports participation represents clean living and that teens involved in basketball or football would not be doing drugs. This research revealed that adolescents t

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family treatment for codependent families of adolescents with an addictive disease. The efforts in this approach are to break down denial, detach from the user, resolve resentments, and develop a healthy lifestyle (Newton, 1992, p. 71). A research study conducted in the Adolescent Unit of Charter North Hospital of Anchorage, Alaska, found that an effective anger management program greatly enhanced the success of treatment for addiction (Wilcox & Dowrick, 1992, p. 29). A relevant chapter from the text, Substance-abusing Adolescents, discusses countertransference difficulties that arise in relationships between drug counselors and their adolescent clients. Apparently the "affective filter" of the therapist is a major component in problems with tenuous client-counselor relationships (Amodeo & Drouilhet, 1992, p. 285). One inconclusive study compared high-risk secondary school students who participated in coping skills intervention and with those whose parents also were involved in the intervention. The differences were minimal and varied only slightly from the control group (Forman, Linney, & Brondino, 1990, p. 67). A program in Santa Fe, New Mexico includes five strategies for family involvement in adolescent drug addiction t
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1255
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

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