Assessing how to handle an adolescent’s substance abuse is a decision that few parents are prepared to make alone. We suggest consulting a mental health professional who specializes in this field. Your youngster’s pediatrician may be able to begin intervention himself, then refer you to an experienced local practitioner. Other sources for recommendations include:
- The psychiatry/psychology departments at area hospitals
- Your state or county department of mental health
- State or county chapters of professional organizations such as the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association and the National Association of Social Workers The American Medical Association
- Any of the following three national help lines:
- DrugHelp, a service of the American Council for Drug Education (ACDE)
- National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD)
- National Drug and Alcohol Treatment Referral Routing Service of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT)
The direction therapy will take depends on the extent of a youngster’s involvement with drugs. Typically, the problem is more serious and goes back farther than the parents imagined and the teenager is willing to admit. According to Dr. Schwartz, the types of substances and paraphernalia used reveal a great deal about an adolescent’s stage of chemical dependency.
“Let’s say that you find a bag of marijuana in your kid’s room,” he says. “It’s almost always going to be his, even though he may claim that he’s ‘holding’ it for someone else. This tells you that the teenager has gone beyond the passive acceptance of marijuana at a party once or twice and has actively made a purchase. Also, he wants the drug badly enough that he’s willing to risk storing it at home.
“If you find a good-sized bong,” he continues, “you know that he’s had experience with high-grade marijuana, because he knows how to concentrate the marijuana smoke by using one of these large water pipes.” Based on the evidence, you’d have to place the young person in this example at stage two on a scale of one to four.
General behavior, too, will influence which intervention is most suitable. “Is this kid cooperative at school and at home?” Dr. Schwartz asks rhetorically. “Has he been reasonably honest and responsible? Or is he rebellious and untrustworthy, and disruptive to the household? If it’s the latter, then treatment probably needs to be more restrictive,” which might include inpatient care in a hospital program rather than an outpatient program. Taking him out of the home temporarily might be best for the family, too, especially if the household includes impressionable younger brothers and sisters. Never lose sight of the fact that one member’s addiction becomes everyone’s problem; their needs also require attention.
The following overview of treatment strategies is intended to introduce you to the various approaches to helping abusers straighten out their lives. These are general guidelines, not recipes for sobriety. Every adolescent’s situation is unique, and therapy must be tailored accordingly.
