Adolescent Drug Abuse Essay Example For Students

Adolescent Drug Abuse Essay Adolescent Drug Abuse Essay I.) Introduction: Crack, booze, pot, crystal- from the inner city to the suburbs to small towns, the world of the adolescent is permeated by drugs. When a little harmless experimentation becomes addiction, parents, teachers, and clinicians are often at a loss. For this age group (roughly ages 13 to 23), traditional substance abuse programs simply are not enough (Nowinski, inside cover). Todays society provides many challenges for adolescents that our parents never had to face. Pre-marital sex and pregnancy, alcohol abuse, and drug addiction have always been around but they have never been more available to adolescents than they are now. Adolescents are more on their own to take care of themselves with more and more single parent households. The problem of drug and alcohol is a major one. Teenagers feel a need to drink and do drugs to fit in to peer groups. The problem is widespread. The common thoughts that drugs are only in the city where the poor live but that is wrong. Any single person can get drugs from the inner city to the small rural towns of Texas and Nebraska. It doesnt matter where you are. There is a major need for adults to intervene and stop the problem at its beginnings, the adolescents. If we sit here and deny the fact that the problem is there then we are just setting ourselves up for disaster. II.) Review of Literature: A Source 1: The first piece of literature that I used was a book written by Dr. Joseph Nowinski entitled Substance Abuse in Adolescents Young Adults. It was written at the Elmcrest Psychiatric Institute in 1990. The book described Dr. Nowinskis study of adolescent addicts of drugs and alcohol. It goes on to explain the need for the development of treatment plans for adolescents because conventional plans do not work on this age group. B) Source 2: The second source that I used was a journal article entitled Prevalence of substance abuse in a rural teenage population. It was written by Wade Silverman. This article was published in The Journal of Adolescent Chemical Dependency in 1991. This article presented the results of a survey done in a rural school system to assess the prevalence rates of substance use and related lifestyle variables for teens and their parents. C) Source 3: The third source that I used was a newspaper article taken from the February 1, 1994 edition of the Los Angeles Times. The piece was written by Marlene Cimons. The article, entitled Illicit drug use by youths shows marked increases, announced that the results of an annual survey showed that drug use had increased significantly among teenagers between 1992 and 1993. D) Source 4: My fourth source was a journal article written by S. Brown and others. It was taken from The Journal of Studies on Alcohol. The article was entitled Conduct disorder among adolescent alcohol and drug abusers and was published in 1996. The article summarized a study that examined the extent to which conduct disorder type behavior predated substance use involvement among 166 adolescents in treatment for alcohol and other drug abuse. E) Source 5: My final source was another journal article that was taken from The Journal of Marital and family Therapy. The article was written by H. Joanning and others in 1992. The article, entitled Treating adolescent drug abuse: A comparison of family systems therapy, group therapy, and family drug education, describes the differential effectiveness of three models of adolescent drug abuse treatment. It compares the Family Systems Therapy, the Adolescent Group Therapy, and the Family Drug Education models. Leadership in Ancient Civilizations EssayIII.) Methodology: I started out my research by going to the computers in the library and researching journal and newspaper articles in the WinSpirs databases. I found articles from psychology, sociology, and science databases. I then looked for the articles in the journal section of the library. I found some of the articles in the school library as well as using my local library. I also used the OPAC computer to find my book source. IV.) Result of Information Gathered: A) Source 1: Dr. Nowinskis book describes specific cases of adolescent drug abuse that he has worked with. He describes the different patterns of drug abuse and the causes of such abuse. He describes causes like alienation, low self- esteem and confidence, stress, and peer pressure. He goes into how development of new treatment techniques are necessary because adolescent addictions are different than those of adults. He describes the process of counseling, denial and compliance, and surrender .