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Teenage Addiction Programs: An Overview

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Teenagers often succumb to academic, social, and family pressures by falling into the grips of substance or behavioral addictions. Teenage addiction programs that succeed in helping teenagers break these addictions do so with a holistic approach that looks at the teenager as a whole person rather than just as a patient with an addiction problem. The holistic approach to teenage addiction rehabilitation is aimed at helping the teenage addict break his or her addiction by dealing with the issues that led to it and by knowing how to respond in a healthy way to the pressures of adolescent and adult life.

Teenage addiction programs include residential as well as outpatient drug therapy programs. The extent of a teenager’s drug addiction, as well as its effect upon the teenager’s academic and social performance, often determines the type of program into which the teenager is placed by parents, school officials, or even the juvenile justice system.

If you are the parent or guardian of a teenager who has been subject to school disciplinary actions or is facing the justice system due to drug abuse, please call us now at (800) 660-0986 or fill out our contact form to find out how we can help you get your teenager the right type of professional addiction treatment.

Signs That Your Teen Is Addicted

Indeed, the first sign of teenage drug abuse sometimes is an arrest for possession of illegal substances or for petty crimes that the teenage addict commits in order to obtain alcohol or drugs. However, teenage addiction encompasses addiction to video games and other behavioral addictions that may accompany substance addiction or that may afflict a teen who is not addicted to any legal or illegal substance.

These behavioral addictions are not illegal, but they do affect the social, personal, and academic development of a teenager. Thus they must be treated just as addictions that result in illegal behavior are treated. By the same token, a teenager may be abusing a legal or illegal substance, which may well constitute a misdemeanor offense but does not qualify as addiction because the teenager does not depend on it. Such abuse also needs to be addressed both to prevent the occurrence of full-blown addiction and to ensure that the teenage substance abuser does not end up with a criminal record related to his or her substance abuse.

Rehabilitation For Teen Addicts

Individual Addiction Counseling Information

Individual addiction counseling is available for those who wish to take part in a detoxification program but do not wish to do so with a group. This counseling focuses on the problem of addiction faced by the individual, and then works with behavioral therapy and other methods to eliminate the use of the addictive substance.

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Most of all, a rehabilitation program for teens must take into account that drug use and engaging in other socially unacceptable addictive behaviors may just be an extreme part of the natural desire of an adolescent to test his or her boundaries. As a child turns into an adult, he or she often chafes at parental restrictions and overly strict school regulations, and he or she could be using illegal substances as a way of protesting against these restrictions. An experienced teen addiction counselor or a program that is intended specifically to treat teens takes this factor into account in treating the teenage patient’s addiction and underlying issues.

Teenagers need to find themselves, but teenagers who use drugs will sooner or later find themselves in trouble. If you believe your teenager is using drugs or you are a teacher or another youth professional who needs to assist a teenager with substance or behavioral addiction abuse issues, please call our 24-hour helpline at (800) 660-0986 or fill out our contact form. We will help you understand the options available for teenage addiction programs that get teenagers on the right track toward a healthy life.