I.) Introduction: "Crack, booze, pot, crystal- from the inner city to the
suburbs to small towns, the world of the adolescent is permeated by
drugs. When 'a little harmless experimentation' becomes addiction,
parents, teachers, and clinicians are often at a loss. For this age group
(roughly ages 13 to 23), traditional substance abuse programs simply are
not enough" (Nowinski, inside cover). Today's society provides many
challenges for adolescents that our parents never had to face.
Pre-marital sex and pregnancy, alcohol abuse, and drug addiction have
always been around but they have never been more available to
adolescents than they are now. Adolescents are more on their own to
take care of themselves with more and more single parent households.
The problem of drug and alcohol is a major one. Teenagers feel a need
to drink and do drugs to fit in to peer groups. The problem is widespread.
The common thoughts that drugs are only in the city where the poor live
but that is wrong. Any single person can get drugs from the inner city to
the small rural towns of Texas and Nebraska. It doesn't matter where you
are. There is a major need for adults to intervene and stop the problem
at its beginnings, the adolescents. If we sit here and deny the fact that
the problem is there then we are just setting ourselves up for disaster.II.)
Review of Literature: A Source 1: The first piece of literature that I
used was a book written by Dr. Joseph Nowinski entitled Substance
Abuse in Adolescents & Young Adults. It was written at the Elmcrest
Psychiatric Institute in 1990. The book described Dr. Nowinski's study of
adolescent addicts of drugs and alcohol. It goes on to explain the need
for the development of treatment plans for adolescents because
conventional plans do not work on this age group. B) Source 2: The
second source that I used was a journal article entitled "Prevalence of
substance abuse in a rural teenage population." It was written by Wade
Silverman. This article was published in The Journal of Adolescent
Chemical Dependency in 1991. This article presented the results of a
survey done in a rural school system to assess the prevalence rates of

and the causes of such abuse. He describes causes like alienation, low
self- esteem and confidence, stress, and peer pressure. He goes into
how development of new treatment techniques are necessary because
adolescent addictions are different than those of adults. He describes the
process of counseling, denial and compliance, and surrender and
recovery. Nowinski stresses the need for family intervention in cases that
involve adolescents. B) Source 2: Silverman gives the results of the
survey and attempts to interpret the results. It was found that 83% of the
students in the study were either abstainers or experimental users. It was
recommended that primary prevention strategies should be used with this
group. The remaining 17% had been deemed "drug users" and it was
found that they all shared a similar lifestyle. All had multiple substance
abuse problems, were engaged in frequent sexual activity, and received
poor grades. it was also found that the amount of parental attention and
supervision was significantly different for both groups. C) Source 3:
This article said that the rise in drug use among teens was driven
by a dramatic rise in the use of marijuana and more use of stimulants,
LSD and inhalants. It also describes how this trend was a reversal from
the recent downward patterns of drug use among teens. D) Source 4:
It was found that most cases of alcohol and drug abuse in
adolescents was attributed to conduct disorder behavior. It was also
found that cases involving this disorder and drug abuse led to a more
frequent relapse into the problem and an increase in anti-social
behavior.E) Source 5: This study found that the Family Therapy
Systems model of treatment appeared to be more effective in treating
and stopping adolescent drug abuse. It registered twice as many
drug-free clients as the Family Drug Education program and three times
as many as the Adolescent Group Therapy model.V.) Summary and
Conclusion: Through the literature and the class it is obvious that drug
and alcohol abuse among adolescents is a prevalent and dangerous