by Robyn Taylor

Created on: October 25, 2008   Last Updated: October 29, 2008

Teen drug abuse arises out of a marriage of circumstances including genetic predispositions toward addiction, emotional susceptibility, peer pressure and accessibliity to drugs.

While parental roles and responses (tolerance or intolerance) are obviously deeply relevant, peer relations seem to be the largest controllable factor in determining the ratios between teen abstinence and teen abuse in relation to drugs.

Though this would seem to reduce the role parents are capable of playing in protecting their children from involvement with cycles of abuse, the reverse is actually true. Because friendships and relationships outside of familial ones play such an active role in the potential development of drug use, parents maintaining involvement in their childrens extracurricular lives, from a very early age on, are capable of guiding the relationships their children have.

Drug abuse, however is a complicated meshing of factors, some introduced by outside measures and external influence, others related to neurology and genetics. While precautionary efforts such as parents playing an active part in their childrens' school, friendships and interests shows a direct correlation to levels of esteem and social comfort, parents can not and should not be held accountable for all actions that teen drug use introduces into the awful cycle of abuse as long as they are actively working to resolve the child's problems by not supporting, condoning or enabling negative behaviours.

There is a responsibility on parents part to rule out any clinical dispositions for abuse such as chemical imbalances, psychological problems or situational abuse that may be affecting the teen, as medication or therapy may be introduced to resolve these issues and this type of clinical support extends well beyond the parents' ability to assist their own teens.

Ideally, problems are headed off long before the teen years as parents openly discuss drugs and family dispositions toward abuse, working with their younger children to grow them into confident drug free teens, however situations of teen drug abuse will potentially exist in even the most well adjusted environments if the child suffers from certain related conditions or is exposed to variant degrees of sexual, physical or emotional abuse. Therefore, it is imperative to address certain behavioural disorders such as bi-polar disorder, ADD, ADHD, schizophrenia or Borderline Personality long before the teen years as these psychological disorders are frequently markers for the masking effect of drug use. Similarly, situations of imposed abuse on the child (physical, sexual or emotional) should also be dealt with through therapy or other determined treatment.

While all scenarios for teen drug abuse are not clearly understood, options for useful treatment are available. These treatment options all have a much higher success rate when family and peer groups support the successful sobriety of the teen involved.

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