Teens Staying Away From Alcohol

It’s great to see more teens staying away from alcohol. Not all teenage drinking is problem drinking, but about 10 to 13 percent of teenagers who drink will develop a problem and many will advance rapidly. It’s often hard to tell whether a teenager has a problem that needs treatment, or whether they are falling prey to peer pressure and experimentation, but with enough signs and symptoms we can usually tell when it has become a problem. It’s hard for teenagers to stop drinking, though, even if they have the desire to stop. The excerpt below is from CRC Health (read the entire article):

Teens in early recovery are extremely vulnerable to relapse. It can be hard to understand why a teenager would work so hard to achieve sobriety only to fall back into drug use−but that’s the power of addiction.

Studies suggest that between 50 percent and 90 percent of addicts relapse at least once in the first four years of sobriety, and most relapse many times. Triggers for relapse can be as mundane as hearing a certain song on the radio or as significant as hanging out with friends from the old drug crowd.

Although relapse is considered normal and predictable, knowing the common triggers for relapse and having an action plan can help teens and their families guard against any slip-ups. Here are a few common relapse triggers to watch out for:

It’s hard going in the teen years – no teen wants to be a social outcast. More and more young people, however, are accepting the choice of clean and straight, and there are support groups for young people, so that a teen trying to stop drinking can get support and realize he or she is not alone. The pressure to drink can be powerful in partying groups, but support groups are powerful, too, and to see a group of teens actively improving their lives in sobriety is incredibly inspiring.

Unfortunately, kids aren’t taught much in school about dealing with stress, so, if a teen is trying to stay away from alcohol, they have to learn coping skills to deal effectively with stress. The teen has to learn that smoking pot, taking pills or drinking alcohol are not stress relievers, even if they work short-term. Using drugs when you have a problem just creates more stress, and the teen gets on a merry-go-round of stress and drinking/drug use, more stress and more drug use.

Once a teen is off the merry-go-round, it’s important to avoid situations where it’s easy to give in to pressure to join the party and to start drinking or using some other drug. If the teen learns how to have fun without alcohol or other drugs, then it becomes easier and the teen realizes that the fun is lasting and not ruined by bad decisions made under the influence of drugs. Relationships become more real — relationships that revolve mainly around drinking and partying are shallow and short-term.

Once a teen can get past the first hurdles in recovery, they have a good chance at long term recovery. It’s hard, but it’s worth it. When the teen can deeply realize they have goals they want to achieve, and that the goals can’t be achieved if they continue to drink or use other drugs, then this deep motivation can get them past (with the help of others) the early, difficult part of recovery.