Treatment Centers Battle Teen Subtance Abuse
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- The numbers are sobering.
According to the survey of 11th graders conducted last year by the Coalition for a Drug-Free Mahoning County – the same group preparing to graduate this spring – 28% had consumed alcohol in the preceding 30 days, 19% had used marijuana, 6% had misused prescription medications and 3.5% had used heroin.
Since 2007, the Ohio Department of Health reports, more deaths have resulted from drug overdoses than from motor vehicle crashes, and at least 223 Mahoning County residents died of drug overdoses from 2000 to 2009.
That children are getting involved with drugs and alcohol at younger ages should come as no surprise. Regardless, to hear that they are starting before their ages reach double digits in some cases is cause for concern.
“Kids are beginning to start experimenting with mood-altering drugs pretty darn early,” around sixth or seventh grade, although there are earlier examples, acknowledges Doug Wentz, community services director at the Neil Kennedy Recovery Center. The clinic has adolescent treatment programs in Austintown, Howland and Youngstown.
That nearly 30% of this year’s senior class in Mahoning County acknowledged consuming alcohol is “alarming,” he says. “The good news is over 70% of them haven’t. Still, that is very unsettling.”
Part of what drives teens to experiment with alcohol and drugs is adolescent psychology – they’re “hardwired to test and challenge boundaries,” he says.
Drinking and smoking marijuana are often perceived as part of adulthood, he also points out. Allowing that peer pressure is a factor, he also argues adults send mixed messages about alcohol and drugs and the popular media glamorize drug and alcohol use.
Young people treated for substance abuse face more than one challenge, Wentz says. “A lot of times, just because of the age they started using they lack the developmental skills to benefit from the treatment,” he says.
Other obstacles are parents resisting treatment for their offspring. They don’t want to entertain the thought their child has become an alcoholic or drug-dependent. Equally frustrating is the lack of funding for prevention and treatment programs. “Much of it comes down to resources and right now funding these programs hasn’t been a priority,” he says.
Many of the clients whom Nikunj Patel encounters start before they enter high school and many he comes across are younger than age 8, he says.
Patel is youth and young adult counselor with Meridian Community Care, Youngstown.
Patel, who works in the intensive outpatient program, points to several factors that drive youths to abuse alcohol or drugs. Among them are peer pressure and bullying. At home, they may not spend enough time with their parents or someone else who can show them right from wrong.
“Kids go through so many different things,” he reflects. While tempted to say things are different than when he was a kid, “I think it’s just presenting itself in different ways,” he says. “Also, a lot of young adolescents have a lot more access to a lot more different types of drugs.”
Typically youths will start out with alcohol, marijuana or even cigarettes, he says. In this region, they move on to abuse prescription medications such as Xanax and other benzodiazepines, and opiates such as Vicodin, Patel says.
Whether these young people are aware of the obstacles they face when they seek employment depends on how aware they are of what they want. If an adolescent lacks a goal, he might want to work “but not having that goal makes it easier for them to have negative behaviors,” Patel says. Individuals who “don’t have a focus on what they might want out of the future tend to get lost in the drug culture a little bit more,” he says.
While some parents have their children tested for substance abuse, Jonathan Sanford, drug-test consultant with Sanford Drug Testing, Youngstown, reports most of the work he does is on behalf of employers who want to screen candidates for jobs. “A lot of parents just don’t want to see the truth,” he’s found. “They really don’t know how to approach it right.”
For employers, Sanford tests for “anything with heavy equipment or machines” that someone could injure himself or others and jobs in transportation, he says. “Having a drug policy in Ohio can be a deduction on workers’ compensation insurance in Ohio so it’s pretty encouraged,” he points out. Typically, anywhere from 10% to 15% test positive, he reports.
Like Patel, David Noll, psychotherapist with Family Recovery Center, Lisbon, reports early drug and alcohol use among his patients. He primarily sees women ages 18 to 30 “and every single one of them began substance abuse between the ages of nine and 12,” he says. In many instances, kids begin using drugs with their parents or other people close to them, such as aunts, uncles and babysitters, Noll reports. Today’s parents and grandparents who came of age in the late 1970s and 1980s in many cases “see smoking pot as a normal thing,” smoking a joint to start the day, at lunch or in the evening at home.
Nearly all the young women Noll treats are trying to escape some sort of pain, whether physical, sexual or emotional abuse, along with “parents who have been so incredibly self-centered” they don’t provide the support their children need. “Primarily what I’m seeing,” he elaborates, “is that these girls have just been neglected – emotionally and physically neglected.”
The main obstacles in treatment tend to be the girls comprehending what they have to do and depending on someone else. “They don’t understand trust. They’ve never really experienced it so they don’t have a clue,” he says.
Access is among the factors that drive substance abuse, says Kathleen Chaffee, executive director of the Columbiana County Mental Health and Recovery Services Board. “The easier it is to get drugs, the more likely kids are to experiment with them,” she says. Acceptance – if the community accepts that underage drinking or drug experimentation is inevitable – is another driver.
“Alcohol is the substance of most prevalent use and abuse among [those] 25 years old and younger,” she says. Alcohol is “everywhere, drugs are easy to get,” no different than in any other community, she remarks.
The 2012 Search Institute of Student Life Survey, conducted of seventh and 10th graders in Columbiana County, showed 32% of them responded that they had used alcohol in the preceding 30 days, down from 38% in 2012. The average age of first use among them was 13. Among seventh graders sampled, 11% reported using alcohol in the last 30 days, down slightly from 12% in 2010. The average age of first-time users was 11.
According to the same survey, 14% of 10th graders reported using marijuana in the previous 30 days, down from 19% in 2010, with 14 the average age of first use. Of the seventh graders sampled, 4% reported use during the previous 30 days, up from 3%, using it for the first time at age 11 on average.
Awareness of the health consequences of underage drinking is not as high as it should be, Chaffee says. Among those who started drinking younger than age 14, 45% are alcohol- dependent. That rate drops to 10% if they wait until age 21.
An issue that marijuana users run into with pre-employment drug screenings is that traces remain in the body for 30 days, she notes, where alcohol is expelled more quickly.
“Part of the process of addiction is you begin to distort your own thinking about how drug use is beginning to affect your life,” Chafee says.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This story was first published in the MidMay print edition of The Business Journal.
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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