A recent study from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) shows that many parents fail to take essential actions that prevent drug use or drinking by their teenaged children. At the same time, the study shows that parents who do take these actions have children with lower rates of drug or alcohol use, meaning that they can be part of the solution. The study is the annual Back to School Survey, published each year in August 2008.

The factors found to discourage substance abuse by teens were:
•    Being engaged in the teens’ day-to-day life
•    Relaxing with them
•    Frequent family dinners
•    Supervision, especially of time spent with friends on weeknights
•    Setting positive examples of healthy behavior.

On the other hand, neglect of these factors was found to coincide with greater drug use.

The study found that 46 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds typically leave home to hang out with friends on school nights, but only 14 percent of parents say their kids usually leave home on these nights. The later that teens are out, the more likely it is that they will be around alcohol and drug use while they are out and the more likely it is that they will join in. Apparently, many parents miss the fact that their teens are leaving home at night.

A startling new result in this report was the increase in the percentage of kids who could quickly obtain marijuana. Twenty-three percent of teens can get it in an hour or less, the highest figure yet. Forty-two percent could get it in a day or less. Of those who could get it in an hour or less, nearly half of the teens surveyed had used the drug.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration reports that almost two and a half million people initiate use of marijuana each year, more than half of them 12- to 17-year-old children. And many of these people will go on to use other addictive drugs. The director of CASA, Joseph Califano, reports that “Twelve- to seventeen-year-old children who used marijuana were eighty-five times more likely to use cocaine” than those who did not.

“A certain number of young people who start abusing drugs early will wind up addicted and in need of rehabilitation,” commented Derry Hallmark, Director of Admissions and a Certified Chemical Dependency Counselor at Narconon Arrowhead. Narconon Arrowhead is one of the country’s leading drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers, located in Canadian, Oklahoma. “The more parents that supervise and spend time with their teens, the fewer people need to come to a rehab like ours. We can effectively help addicts with our long-term, residential program, but prevention is far less expensive and painful.”

Addiction recovery at Narconon starts with addressing cravings by flushing the residual by-products of drugs or alcohol that remain in the fatty tissues and are involved in stimulating cravings. The program uses a dry-heat sauna and a strict regimen of vitamins and other supplements to sweat out these residues then goes on to restore a person’s interest and involvement in life through counseling and life skills training.

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