by Timothy Ijala

Created on: October 25, 2008

A sad sight can be seen in many third world country cities. It is the sight of street children sniffing glue. In some other cases you read about them being arrested by the police because of being in possession and using drugs. What causes these youngsters to use these substances? Well one reason is that it keeps the gnawing pain of hunger and cold away from them. Because they live in the streets with barely enough to eat or not enough cover to keep them warm they result to substance abuse in order to escape from reality, from the life that they have to live every day from which they see no way out. That may account for the reason why these teenagers abuse drugs.

However that does not explain why other teens in well to do families who seem to be well taken care of would also abuse drugs. So there must be other reasons to explain this.
One reason is peer pressure. You may have a very well behaved teenager. However one unfortunate thing about teenagers is the extent they will go in order to be accepted by their peers or in order not to look different. So when pressure comes from their peers to smoke something illegal that craving for acceptance may lead them to do it against better judgement. And it most likely starts as a one off thing with a promise from ones friends that it will never happen again. However that one off soon turns to two then three and before long the teenager is addicted and he or she cannot easily get out of that situation.
The influence of TV and films cannot of course be ruled out. Many film and TV shows show youngsters drinking and doing drugs. It seems the cool sort of thing to do. Then your teenager may decide to imitate what he or she has seen on Tv and before long they are into drinking and taking drugs.
There is also the aspect of the environment that the teenager may have been brought up in starting from the home environment. The parents themselves may be people who drink and abuse drugs. So you will find that alcohol and drugs are easily available to the children. And since children are curious and they learn by example before long they are experimenting in drugs and alcohol and the rest is history.
Therefore a number of reasons could be responsible for teen substance abuse. However that does not mean that your teenager has to be involved in substance abuse. Parents can help their teens from an early age to avoid substance abuse and be an example to them and also watch who they are moving around with.

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