Substance Abuse and Adolescents There Research Paper

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Research that the authors report in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy -- a peer-reviewed journal -- shows that adolescents abusing substances cause "stress-related symptoms" in parents (Yuen, et al., 2011, p. 250). The stress parents experience includes: depression, anxiety, fear of danger, guilt, anger, despair as well as grief associated with failure in the parental role" (Yuen, 250). And so prior to bringing parents into intervention strategies (to assist with their children's abuse issues) -- which has been proven to be effective in many previous studies -- Yuen explains that parents may need training in terms of allowing them to become "…more emotionally independent from their adolescents' behavior" (259).

A peer-reviewed article in the Journal of Traumatic Stress (Kingston, et al., 2009, p. 65) reports that the "Cumulative exposure to multiple traumatic events" -- child sexual abuse (CSA), for example -- has been linked to "…earlier ages of substance use initiation." Other traumatic experiences that very young children may have encountered ("…physical assault, sexual assault, a serious accident… [or] injury" or an incident that caused "physical damage" to the child) can lead to an early experimentation with drugs and alcohol (Kingston, 66).

Counselors working with adolescents that are abusing drugs and alcohol should if at all possible be aware of earlier traumatic events; these childhood events "predict" later abuse and moreover, linked to the later abuse of substances is "risky behaviors" (driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs) which can cause serious injury or death to the adolescent (Kingston, 66). Looking closely into the research Kingston and colleague have done shows a vicious cycle: a) child is physically or sexually abused; b) later as an adolescent the individual begins abusing alcohol and/or drugs; and c) the abusive behaviors lead to risky behaviors that can in turn cause physical and psychological harm.

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In conclusion, there is a great need for worthy strategies like solution focused brief therapy and other resolution to be embraced in order to help adolescents work through their abusive behaviors. The key to helping adolescents become healthy and happy individuals in their adulthood is to get them into worthy counseling programs; and in that context, knowing the details of unpleasant or traumatic experiences adolescents endured during their childhood is also pivotal to the success of the intervention.

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