Addiction is a disease that is progressive yet difficult to spot in the early stages, which means that it can easily blow up into a full-blown dependence. Young teenagers are usually very susceptible to drug abuse because of their impressionable age making them an easy target due to peer pressure.
Having a close relationship with your children and understanding their daily habits, passions, and interests will make it easy for you to detect changes when they happen. However, you can still use some behavioral and physical markers to help you figure out if your teen may be having a struggle with drugs even though you are not extremely close to one another.
The signs to look out for and know if you’re teen needs to get into a drug recovery program from The Forge Recovery Center include:
Erratic mood changes:
Mood changes are common with teenagers due to their fluctuating hormones. However, when it comes to looking out for signs of addiction, you can notice that there is a constant dip in energy and productivity levels. This means that they are sluggish in their work and are apathetic towards life.
They also may have reduced self-control and increased aggression toward people. A consistent overreaction to the most minor of inconveniences is also a sure sign that drug addiction is on the onset and drug recovery may be necessary.
Tardiness in school work and school absence:
Since they know they will not be able to take the drugs as freely in the school premises, your teen may start dropping out of school to go in search of locations where they can freely partake in their drug use. Missing school without your knowledge should therefore be taken seriously. There may also be a significant decline in your teen’s performance in school where they constantly fail tests and get extremely poor grades as contrasted to their previous performance.
Avoiding family gatherings and previous friend groups:
Drug use comes with secrecy and shame to it and reduces the capacity and need for healthy social interactions. Therefore, when your teen constantly behaves poorly with family and friends, there might be a cause for worry.
Another thing to note is when your teen starts changing who they hang out with. This may mean that there is a new friend group that is influencing them towards these negative habits or they feel too ashamed to hang out with their previous friends. Drug recovery in this case will help them move away from such negative influences.
Paying no heed to hygiene and appearances:
As drug use progresses, there is a decreased interest in taking care of the bodily appearance of the addict. They, therefore, may fail to clean up as much as they normally should or used to. They may have drawn curtains on their windows all the time and not changed their clothes as regularly.
Finding drug-related evidence and paraphilia:
The final and most pointing sign is when you find physical evidence that suggests that there has been the use of drugs. This may include burnt cigarettes, alcohol bottles, pipes, bongs, and online messages regarding drug exchanges. They may also smell like certain drugs or return home intoxicated after lying about their whereabouts.
Conclusion:
Drug addiction is considered a national pandemic and teens are at the highest risk of getting into such risky behaviors that could put their entire lives into jeopardy. As a parent, the best you can do is get to the root of the problem and seek drug recovery methods and institutions that will help them.
