Adolescent Treatment

Adolescent treatment for drug and alcohol addiction is some of the most specialized and imperative addiction treatment utilized because of the special needs of adolescents who are addicted to drugs and alcohol. Unlike adults, adolescents are still growing and developing in many ways, including brain development as well as life lessons that only experience can bring. Because adolescents are still developing and growing, it is essential that they are able to get back to a healthy state of being so that they can move on from drug and alcohol addiction without suffering permanent developmental problems as a result of their addiction. Many adult addicts who have been addicted to drugs and/or alcohol since adolescence without effective adolescent treatment have developmental problems such as immaturity, lack of responsibility and accountability, emotional fragility, lack of confidence, and desire for immediate gratification with extreme lack of patience. All of these developmental problems are signs of addictive behaviors in adults, but basic struggles for most adolescents as they grow and develop into adulthood. Without adolescent treatment for addiction to drugs and alcohol, adolescents cannot outgrow these developmental problems on their own, which are intrinsic problems associated with severe addiction.

Another problem inherent with adolescent addiction is the consequences they suffer, or don't suffer and the effect of that on their willingness to get into adolescent treatment. For most addicts, there has to be a bottom - a point at which the addict has suffered such horrible consequences as a result of addiction that they cannot continue to live in their addiction and are finally "done" with using drugs and alcohol. It is at this time that addiction treatment is considered and accepted. Generally, these kinds of consequences are things like extended periods of time in jail or prison, away from spouses and children, failure to pay bills and facing eviction and/or bankruptcy and losing custody of children and any ability to maintain normalcy or stability in life. These kinds of consequences are fairly specific to adults as they are related to responsibilities assigned to adults, not children. For the most part, the responsibilities of an adolescent are limited to school and any extra-curricular activities, the loss of which would not seem to be so harsh while still caught up in addiction. For the most part, adolescents do not have to support themselves or families and they do not face long terms of incarceration from the courts for drug and alcohol abuse. Adolescent addicts generally do not have to face serious consequences as a result of their addiction to drugs and alcohol, making a "bottom", and adolescent treatment further and further from reality, until serious injury or death.

One of the most powerful motivators for addicts are negative consequences, when an addict has faced enough or his/her life has become unmanageable enough to want to make a change for the better and seek addiction treatment. However, for adolescent addicts, maybe they drop out of school, or they spend a night or two in a juvenile jail, or they get sent to a special school for troubled teens where they will most likely have access to more drugs. Compared to 5-10 years or more in prison, losing all contact with loved ones, and losing a home, car, and all essentials, these consequences are generally not severe enough to provide life changing motivation to enter adolescent treatment. However, because adolescents don't know of any world outside of the one they live, these consequences may be drastic enough to them to make them willing to enter adolescent treatment. For many young men and women still living at home, a threat to lose the roof over their heads can certainly be enough of a motivator to get into treatment. The key with getting unwilling young people into adolescent treatment, as with any adult, is to bring their bottom to them and make the potential consequences of their refusal to get into adolescent treatment severe enough to them so that they are willing to accept the help.

What is Different About Adolescent Treatment?

Adolescent treatment has the same general outline as any adult treatment program, but with a more focused goal. In adolescent treatment, the main focus is not just on getting the addict sober and teaching a few essential survival lessons to remain sober in the real world, after treatment has ended. Adolescent treatment can come in two main forms. One is adolescent treatment programs that encourage and allow young addicts to remain in high school, if they still have not graduated while remaining in the treatment program. This kind of adolescent treatment tries to combine the education of a treatment center without stopping the addicts life to do so. Many parents prefer this option because of the importance of an education, at least on a high school level. This kind of adolescent treatment, however can have drawbacks for some kinds of addiction in adolescents. Not all cases of addiction are the same, and especially with adolescents, multi-tasking on such a high level can become overwhelming and ultimately undermine the entire program on both levels. For this reason, there are also adolescent treatment programs that do not allow the option for continuing with high school while in the treatment program. Instead, these adolescent treatment centers will be more like adult treatment centers, focusing entirely on addiction recovery and sobriety skills once treatment has been completed. The biggest difference between these kinds of adolescent treatment programs and adult treatment programs is simply the sensitivity the counselors and therapists must have towards adolescents, taking into account their natural immaturity, lack of responsibility, and lack of experience, as well as the stunted developmental growth attributed to drug and alcohol abuse. It takes a special kind of behavioral health care professional to do effective work in an adolescent treatment center because adolescents are so much more sensitive and so much less mature than most adults, even though the majority of adult addicts suffer from extreme immaturity, lack of responsibility and over-sensitivity.

Finding Adolescent Treatment