Adolescent Addiction: Why Do These Kids Do It?

Teenage boys and girls alike tend to challenge authority and even involve in risky behavior. Many of them get introduced to drugs and alcohol, which may eventually set them up for a crooked and arduous path towards addiction. But why do they do it?

This article is part one of a two-part series about Adolescent Addiction. This part will tackle the motivations and reasons why many teens try drugs and eventually become addicted.

As a parent, it is important to know these reasons in order to better protect their child against any involvement in drugs, as well as to be prepared and have enough knowledge when their children indeed have taken drugs and are becoming addicted.

An All-Too-Familiar Story

You once had this young child who is happy, cheerful, obedient, and lovable. You don’t see any problem with him as he does great in school and participates in family and school activities. However, he has become disrespectful, irresponsible, and defiant all of a sudden. He spends hours in his room or out with his friends even on a school night. When you ask him how he is or where he’s been, he lashes out to you in anger.

Then, he starts to miss school, he goes out with new sets of friends that hae reputations for getting in trouble, and when you searched his room, you found what you hope you wouldn’t ever find in your child’s room: drug paraphernalia.

So you have begged, cried, scolded, punished, pleaded, negotiated, and threatened him. Nothing worked.

Now, you are watching your beloved child fade and become this stranger involved in the drug culture you may only just heard from others and watched on TV. You didn’t know that it would happen to you and your child.

What to do?

As a parent, you need to take a step back and objectively analyze what is going on. It’s one thing to deal with the symptoms of adolescent addiction, such as attitude, hair style, clothing, breaking curfews, friends, and presence of paraphernalia. However, you should also consider the deeper problems such as peer pressure, family dynamics, and possible addiction. Knowing the real problems behind your adolescent child’s behavior can allow you to find a more fitting solution.

Why Do Kids Use Drugs?

1. A way to fit in. You kid may be lonely and is finding it hard to fit in with other groups in school or in the neighborhood. So they turn to the drug cliques, where membership is easy–just buy and use drugs. This is a very tempting group to belong in, a group they can hang with, which for them seems to be a lot of fun (at first).

2. No way out. Your child may also get in over his head, as his effort to fit in takes a turn for the worse. Being in a group with other troubled teens may get him involved in a lot of trouble, yet he is being threatened if he ever tries to leave. Other drug cliques may coerce him to lie, steal, and even deal–and before you know it, he has no way to get out of the escalating criminal activity.

3. Self-medication. Maybe your child just had one bad day and someone offered him marijuana. Or he discovered he seems to sleep better when he drinks, or performs better in school when he takes uppers. They use because they like the relief and other effects the drugs bring. Little does he (or you) know that he may be suffering from depression, anxiety, or some other disorder. Once this underlying disorder is addressed, the need to abuse illegal drugs may not be an issue.

4. Wanting attention. Maybe you are showering your other kids attention, and you may not know it, but this leaves a deep mark on him. He might think, “I am not a ‘perfect’ child,” and so he thinks being a “gangster” would do. He wants to get noticed in any way he can, and since he doesn’t have outstanding achievements in school, in sports, or in arts, then maybe he can try something else to get noticed–and after all the you’ve been all over him now, he might think that it’s working.

5. Just bored. Seeking thrills and excitement may just be part of growing up, but then there are kids who get into criminal behavior just for kicks. The exhilaration and thrill of doing something you know is wrong, of hiding, of sneaking around, and the possibility of getting caught is very exciting. Maybe he even gets a kind of high just from all the covert activity itself.

7. It’s normal for them. Since your kid may be surrounded by friends and other family members who are also using drugs, then he may see this as normal behavior. Therefore it is easy for him to fall into the trap of adolescent addiction. They may even have relatives whom they look up to who rationalize that drugs should be legal. Aside from that, seeing movies that glorify drug culture can also contribute to the sense of wonderment and norm.

8. Addiction. Addiction is always a possibility. If he is not addicted now, with the way your kid is going, adolescent addiction is possible. You should also watch out as your kid may be taking other substances.

Seeing your child’s future become ruined by drugs can be heartbreaking for a parent. However, it’s not too late. Help is available. Call or text us for a free assessment and to find out how your child can get the help he needs: 09175098826.