“For years I sought peace and happiness. The people at Club Recovery helped me discover it was merely hidden in the shadow of my addiction. I thank God and Club Recovery for helping me stay sober today. ”
- PK, Bloomington
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YOUNG ADULT TREATMENT PROGRAM
IT'S THE HERE AND NOW THAT COUNTS
by Orrin Tietz
We all hear and read about tragedies that occur among young people when they abuse alcohol or drugs. A recent high school graduate is killed in a late night drunk driving crash. A college student is found in a college dormitory dead of alcohol poisoning. The body of a college student is found in a river after he wandered away from a drinking party.
Those of us who are older, if we are honest about ourselves, remember how we experimented with many things, especially when we first had the freedom to be out of the watchful eye of parents. Most of us will say we did things we will never tell our parents about. This experimental stage of life is also when people make decisions about many things, and one of the decisions they will make is about their relationship to alcohol and other drugs.
While it is a common public image that college is a place where alcohol abuse and drug abuse is rampant, studies have found that drinking and related problems are pervasive among young people regardless of whether they attend college. The Minnesota Treatment Needs Assessment Survey* showed a significantly higher rate of use for cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, prescription drugs, and other illicit drugs for this age group compared to any other.
Many who participate in risky behavior earlier in life will emerge as charming and responsible persons. On the other hand, there are some who have already become chemically addicted and require treatment. Their addiction is taking control at precisely the time of life when they need to apply energy and judgment toward developing their future. What they do now will affect them for years to come. For them the earlier an intervention leads to treatment, the fewer years of their lives will be lost to addiction.
Club Recovery has created an alcohol abuse treatment and drug abuse treatment program especially for young adults to more fully address their individual needs. The culture surrounding older adolescents and young adults can be vastly different from other age groups. Life styles, career decisions, and relationships are in the making and are often in transition. Not only do older teens and young adults face the normal developmental changes in their lives, they need to face the problems of chemical addiction as well.
“This age group has not had the extreme consequences older adults have had,” says Barry Lehman, counselor for this group at Club Recovery. “Their level of denial is greater. They see no need for change. They see themselves as perfectly normal, because everybody they know is doing the same thing.”
Barry has many years of experience with young people and likes to talk about what makes this age group special. “Showing the consequences of addiction has no impact,” he says. “The physical consequences are too far down the road. It takes more focusing on the here and now.”
Parents often feel they have little control over their children at this age, but parents need to know they are still often the strongest influence in their children’s lives. Teachers, school counselors, law enforcement, social workers, and anyone who has contact with this age group needs to know that addiction can and does start early in life for some individuals. For them, treatment means a change that will affect them for a lifetime. The best time to start is here and now.
*Minnesota Department of Human Services, January 2006.
PRESCRIPTION DRUG ABUSE IS UP AMONG YOUNG ADULTS
Stimulant prescription medications use us up among college students according to findings of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, as reported in NIDA Notes, March 2006.
It is estimated that 7.4 percent of college students used the painkiller Vicodin without a prescription in 2004. Other stimulants commonly used without a prescription are Ritalin, Dexedrine, and Adderall. These are often procured from friends or from home and are also available on the street or on the internet.
“Students abuse prescription drugs to get high, to self-medicate for pain episodes, to help concentrate during exam time, and to relieve stress,” says Dr. Lynda Erinoff, formerly of NIDA’s Division of Epidemiology. “Most people assume that if a medication is available on the market, it must be safe even if it was not prescribed for them.” They don’t understand the risks they are taking. One risk among many others is to develop drug addiction.
Students who abused prescription stimulants reported higher levels of cigarette smoking, heavy drinking, risky driving, and abuse of marijuana, ecstasy, and cocaine. They are five times as likely to report driving after heavy drinking.
At Club Recovery we are very aware of this trend and the program for teen drug treatment and young adult treatment includes treatment for those involved with prescription drug abuse.