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Fighting Teen Addiction

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Addiction can happen at any age, but it usually starts when a person is young.  If your teen continues to use drugs despite harmful consequences, he or she may be addicted.
If an adolescent starts behaving differently for no apparent reason—such as acting withdrawn, frequently tired or depressed, or hostile—it could be a sign he or she is developing a drug-related problem. Parents and others may overlook such signs, believing them to be a normal part of puberty. Other signs that your teen may have a drug problem include:

  • a change in peer group
  • carelessness with grooming
  • decline in academic performance
  • missing classes or skipping school
  • loss of interest in favorite activities
  • trouble in school or with the law
  • changes in eating or sleeping habits
  • deteriorating relationships with family members and friends

Through scientific advances, we know more than ever before about how drugs work in the brain. We also know that addiction can be successfully treated to help young people stop abusing drugs and lead productive lives. Intervening early when you first spot signs of drug use in your teen is critical; don’t wait for your teen to become addicted before you seek help. However, if a teen is addicted, treatment is the next step.
Repeated drug use changes the brain. Brain imaging studies of people with drug addictions show changes in areas of the brain that are critical to judgment, decision-making, learning and memory, and behavior control. Quitting is difficult, even for those who feel ready.
Asking for help from professionals is the first important step
You can start by bringing your child to a doctor who can screen for signs of drug use and other related health conditions. You might want to ask in advance if he or she is comfortable screening for drug use with standard assessment tools and making a referral to an appropriate treatment provider. If not, ask for a referral to another provider skilled in these issues.
You can also contact an addiction specialist directly.  There are 3,500 board-certified physicians who specialize in addiction in the United States.  The American Society of Addiction Medicine website has a Find a Physician feature on its home page, and the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry has a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist Finder on its website. You and the physician can decide if your teen or young adult should be referred to treatment.
It takes a lot of courage to seek help for a child with a possible drug problem because there is a lot of hard work ahead for both of you, and it interrupts academic, personal, and possibly athletic milestones expected during the teen years. However, treatment works, and teens can recover from addiction, although it may take time and patience. Treatment enables young people to counteract addiction’s powerful disruptive effects on their brain and behavior so they can regain control of their lives. You want to be sure your teen is healthy before venturing into the world with more independence, and where drugs are more easily available.
What to expect from a doctor visit
The doctor will ask your child a series of questions about use of alcohol and drugs, and associated risk behaviors (such as driving under the influence or riding with other drivers who have been using drugs or alcohol). The doctor might also give a urine and/or blood test to identify drugs that are being abused. This assessment will help determine the extent of a teen’s drug use (if any) and whether a referral to a treatment program is necessary.
There are medications available to treat addictions to alcohol, nicotine, and opioids (heroin and pain relievers). These are generally prescribed for adults but, in some circumstances, doctors may prescribe them for younger patients. When medication is available, it can be combined with behavioral therapy to ensure success for most patients. In addition, non-addictive medication is sometimes prescribed to help with withdrawal. Other medications are available to treat possible mental health conditions (such as depression) that might be contributing to your child’s addiction.

Your treatment provider will advise you about what medications are available for your particular situation. Some treatment centers follow the philosophy that they should not treat a drug addiction with other drugs, but research shows that medication can help in many cases.
You child’s treatment provider will probably recommend counseling. Behavioral treatment (also known as “talk therapy”) can help patients engage in the treatment process, change their attitudes and behaviors related to substance abuse, and increase healthy life skills. These treatments can also enhance the effectiveness of medications and help people stay in treatment longer.
Treatment for substance abuse and addiction can be delivered in many different settings using a variety of behavioral approaches. With adults, both individual therapy and group counseling settings with peers are used. However, studies suggest group therapy can be risky with a younger age group, as some participants in a group may have negative influence over the others, or even steer conversation toward stories about having fun with drugs. Some research suggests that the most effective treatments for teens are those that involve one or more family members present.
Whatever you do, do not ignore the warning signs of addiction. Getting your child help early-on can increase their chances of leading a productive life as an adult.
 
Source: National Institute of Health

Is Your Child Depressed?

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Is your teenager or younger child depressed? Perhaps they are sad, hostile, withdrawn, doing poorly in school, or have changes in eating or sleeping habits. Sound familiar?
Traditionally, if a parent is concerned about their child’s mental health, they would take the child to the doctor for a screening test for depression, anxiety, or other concerns. However, in a recent article published in Contemporary Clinic, the findings from researchers at McGill University suggest that traditional screening tools often misdiagnosed depression in kids and teens.
“There was not a single tool with even moderate evidence of sufficient accuracy to effectively identify depressed children and adolescents without also incorrectly picking up many non-depressed children and adolescents,” said lead author Michelle Roseman, PhD.
“Our study shows that if depression screening were carried out using existing screening tools, many nondepressed children and adolescents would be mistakenly identified as depressed,” stated senior author Brett Thombs, PhD, in a press release. “This could lead to the unnecessary prescription of potentially harmful psychiatric medications and negative messages about the mental health of some children who do not have mental health disorders.”
Psychotherapy often is tried as an initial treatment for mild depression. Psychotherapy may help to determine the severity and persistence of the depression and whether antidepressant medications may be warranted. Types of psychotherapies include “cognitive behavioral therapy,” which helps people learn new ways of thinking and behaving, and “interpersonal therapy,” which helps people understand and work through troubled personal relationships.
What’s a parent to do? Perhaps we need to look at other factors and determine potential causes of the change in behavior. Any mental health problem begins when physical or emotional stress triggers chemical changes in the brain. Coping skills are methods a person uses to deal with stressful situations. Coping skills can be good or bad, so it’s important to train youth on how to positively cope for good mental health, so that the negative coping skills don’t become a way of life on into adulthood.
Positive life-long coping skills include:
Meditation and relaxation – practicing deep breathing techniques can help reduce stress and induce relaxation.
Physical activity – getting the heart rate up causes the body to release endorphins which provides some stress relief.
Reading – picking up a good book to escape reality for awhile is a positive way to de-stress and take their mind off of what is stressing them out.
Friendship – Having friends who listen and support through the good and the bad times is essential.
Laugh – Adding humor to a stressful situation can help lighten the mood.
Hobbies – Listening to music, working in the garden, and coloring in a coloring book (even for adults) or drawing are great ways to reduce stress in kids.
Spirituality – Recent studies have found that people who believe in a higher power and pray have better mental health than those who do not.
Pets – Taking care of a pet brings a calming influence in people and can help distract the mind from stressful thoughts.
Volunteer – being involved in the community is a good way to take the mind off of a person’s own problems and help someone who may have bigger problems to deal with.
Sleep – Everyone needs a good night’s sleep to give the body the chance to rest and repair after a stressful day. However, sleeping too much without the other activities can be a negative.
Eating well – Healthy nutrition will not only improve physical health, but it plays a huge role in mental health, too.
There is direct correlation between kids who are hungry with poor performance in school. Grades suffer and behavior problems are evident and these kids are often diagnosed with mental conditions that are not really the issue.
If you have tried these positive coping skills and the signs of depression are consistent, seek the help of a therapist who can help diagnose or provide other methods of treatment. If medication is needed, it’s important to continue working with your doctor and therapist for signs of suicide. Many antidepressants are black-labeled, meaning they have a suicide risk-factor. It’s also important to immediately stop taking prescription medications without consulting your doctor, as this may also produce negative side-effects.

Are your teenagers getting enough sleep?

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Summer is coming to an end and so are the days of letting our teenagers sleep in until noon. With school about to re-open (if it hasn’t already), it’s time to start setting alarms and getting the kids out of bed.  But according to the CDC, the earlier the start time of school, the more negative the health impact is on our teenage students.
“Getting enough sleep is important for students’ health, safety, and academic performance,” said Anne Wheaton, Ph.D., lead author and epidemiologist in CDC’s Division of Population Health. “Early school start times, however, are preventing many adolescents from getting the sleep they need.”
According to research from the CDC fewer than one in five middle and high schools in the United States begin the school day after the recommended 8:30 a.m. start time.  When schools do start later, this allows students a better opportunity to get the recommended 8.5 – 9.5 hours of sleep per night. Too little sleep is always a complaint among high school students and is associated with being overweight, drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco, vaping, and using illegal drugs, not to mention the negative impact it has on grades.
CDC key findings:

  • 42 states reported that 75-100% of the public schools in their respective states started before 8:30 a.m.
  • The average start time was 8:03 a.m. and this is true for North Carolina
  • The percentage of schools with start times of 8:30 a.m. or later varied greatly by state. No schools in Hawaii, Mississippi, and Wyoming started at 8:30 a.m. or later; more than 75% of schools in Alaska and North Dakota started at 8:30 a.m. or later.
  • Louisiana had the earliest average school start time (7:40 a.m.), while Alaska had the latest (8:33 a.m.).
  • In 2014, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a policy statement urging middle and high schools to modify start times to no earlier than 8:30 a.m. to aid students in getting sufficient sleep to improve their overall health. School start time policies are not determined at the federal or state level, but at the district or individual school level. Future studies may determine whether this recommendation results in later school start times.

Parents can help their teens by encouraging a more consistent bedtime as well as rise times, including weekends. Parents can also help with bedtime routines by eating dinner a little earlier, limiting caffeine intake, having the kids do homework when they get home, and promoting physical activity.
To learn about CDC’s efforts to promote sufficient sleep, visit https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/index.html.

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