The Research Paper Topic Proposal Assignment
Psychology 290
What social, emotional, and mental factors make it more likely for teens to use drugs?
Substance abuse, especially alcoholism, is a big problem for teenagers all over the world, especially in the US and other developed countries. Using drugs as a teen can have many different effects, depending on the drug, the amount used, and where it happens (Abuse, n.d.). Abusing alcohol and drugs can hurt you in both the short and long term. Using drugs as a teen is linked to a number of risks that could last into adulthood. Teens should know that even a little bit of drug use can be bad for their health and happiness. Teenagers are more likely to become addicted because their bodies aren’t fully grown until around age 24. (Gray & Squeglia, 2018). When teens use drugs and alcohol, it makes them more likely to have bad things happen, like fatal overdoses, violent behavior, and car accidents.
Teenage drug abuse is a complicated issue, and the importance of my topic lies in my analysis of why things like peer pressure, aggression, and mental health play a role. We are told that alcohol and drugs are bad for our health, but we are not taught how to avoid them in real life (Santrock, 2021). But not all young people understand that using drugs is “abuse” or that there is a link between what they do and what happens to them. Teenagers often think they are invincible and won’t be affected by the problems of their peers.
Teens’ brains grow much more slowly when they smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, or use cannabis on a regular basis. It can cause depression and anxiety in young people, depending on how much of it they take. Many things, like the need to deal with stress, can cause teenagers to use drugs and alcohol. When most people their age are in some kind of formal education, it may be hard for some teenagers to balance school and social life. Teens use drugs because they want to try new things and need to feel like they belong in a group. Teenage drug use is a way for teens to deal with the symptoms of mental health problems like depression and anxiety (Drug Identification and Testing in the Juvenile Justice System, 1998). Teens use drugs because they have bad parents, don’t have enough self-control, and want to try new things.
Clinical techniques and even a broad assessment of environmental factors can be used to accurately measure how much teens use drugs. To figure out if their teens are using drugs or other substances, teachers and parents need to look for signs like mood changes, bad grades, and strange behavior. The use of drugs and alcohol by teenagers should be checked as part of regular checkups, according to medical guidelines. The BSTAD can be used to check for drug abuse problems in people between the ages of 12 and 17. (Miller, 2018). In this evaluation, the S2BI tool would also be very important.
When figuring out how susceptible a teen is to social pressure, it’s important to keep the patient’s privacy in mind. One of the main reasons people use drugs is because they feel rejected by their loved ones, especially their families, because of their sexuality or lack of it. It makes sense for a doctor to be worried about a patient’s health and ask about headaches and the chance of seizures. Information about the patient’s use of drugs and alcohol, friends, etc.
This paper shows that teens’ mental health and the way their families work have a lot to do with how they try drugs and alcohol. People often use drugs as a way to deal with stress, which is the main external stressor linked to this kind of behavior. Teenagers with stress-related mental health problems like depression and anxiety may use drugs as a way to deal with their problems.
So, counseling and behavioral therapy can be very helpful for teenagers who are having problems for the first time. Use of drugs by teens can be mild or severe. In either case, it’s best to talk to a trained mental health professional. Drug-abusing adults are helped by the same programs that help teens change their behavior (Blakemore, 2019). On the other hand, primary care doctors can prescribe medications to help with withdrawal symptoms.
References
Abuse, N. I. on D. (n.d.). What drugs are most frequently used by adolescents? National Institute on Drug Abuse. https://nida.nih.gov/publications/principles-adolescent-substance-use-disorder-treatment-research-based-guide/frequently-asked-questions/what-drugs-are-most-frequently-used-by-adolescents
Blakemore, S. J. (2019). Adolescence and mental health. The lancet, 393(10185), 2030-2031. https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10075384/1/Blakemore_Lancet%20essay%20final%2018%20April%202019.pdf
Drug Identification and Testing in the Juvenile Justice System. (1998, May). Consequences of youth substance abuse. Ojjdp.ojp.gov. https://ojjdp.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh176/files/pubs/drugid/ration-03.html
Gray, K. M., & Squeglia, L. M. (2018). Research Review: What have we learned about adolescent substance use?. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 59(6), 618-627. https://acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jcpp.12783
Miller, C. (2018, October 8). Mental Health Disorders and Teen Substance Use. Child Mind Institute; Child Mind Institute. https://childmind.org/article/mental-health-disorders-and-substance-use/
Santrock, J. W. (2021). Life-span development (18th ed.). New York, Ny: Mcgraw-Hill Education. – essay writers
