Is Teen Drug Abuse and Alcoholism Reaching Crisis Proportions?

The frightening part about teenage alcoholism and teenage drug abuse, is how young the kids today are that are becoming addicted. Seeing kids of 11-13 in rehab centers being treated for addiction is not unusual

It's not easy being a teenager. Trying to fit in, make sense of yourself and the changes you're going through, the pressures of school - plus really starting to take an active interest in the opposite sex, make it a difficult time.

On top of that, teenagers these days are being exposed to a lot more from a much younger age through the media and television. Topics like alcohol, drugs and sex, are not possibly regarded as taboo in the same way they were 10-20 years ago.

And with the usual experimentation that happens at that age anyway, you now have kids of 10 trying drugs and alcohol. The problem is that at that age, you just don't have the maturity to deal with that and so it will create problems.

It is impossible however to pin the increase in teen drug and alcohol addiction to any single factor. There are just so many different variables that may play a role.

Greater exposure at a younger age and so experimenting sooner as I mentioned briefly above, mixed in with a large dose of peer pressure, certainly play a significant role. One tends to do a lot of dumb stuff when you're young, with alcohol and drug abuse obviously a part of that for many.

I possibly think too that the standard of parenting, is possibly not what it used to be and so also plays a significant role. These days both parents tend to work, hours worked are generally longer, you have more single parent families, divorce rates are higher - all this stuff is going to affect teenagers who then use alcohol and drugs to escape their emotional turmoil.

But I think one of the biggest reasons today for the escalating problem of teenage alcoholism, and especially teenage drug addiction, is the availability of alcohol and drugs. If you look especially at the kinds of drugs readily and easily available on the streets today, heroin and amphetamines being two of the worst, it doesn't take long for kids to get addicted. And these are drugs that weren't available as easily 15-20 years ago.

Fighting the battle against teenage drug addiction and alcoholism is getting more difficult by the day. As a parent, providing a supportive and loving home environment is your most important job, and in reality pretty much as you can really do. You then just have to hope and pray it will be enough.