You might be shocked to learn that you could be your own kid's drug dealer.
If you've got prescription drugs in your bathroom medicine cabinet, your kids might be abusing those drugs.
"The problem's been there all along," according to Bill Poray, outpatient coordinator at Marworth, a drug and alcohol treatment facility at Waverly, Pa. Poray, a licensed clinical social worker, said the reasons defy explanation.
"We as a society have become more medicated," he said. "Younger people see drugs that will make them feel good, or at least feel better, ASAP."
Prescription drugs such as Ritalin, Aderol, Vicodin and OxyContin, all synthetic opiates, alter the user's mood, he said.
Poray said a number of factors contribute to prescription drug abuse, most of them related to family dynamics.
"It's societal," he said. "Both parents are working, kids are growing up without the attachments vital to their development. The kids are parenting themselves."
Dominc Herbst, president of Bethesda Family Services Foundation in Lewisburg, agreed with Poray.
"We see the effects more than the evidence," he said. "The biggest cause is relational pain from betrayal."
The root causes may be anxiety, detachment, fear, depression or bitterness, or a combination of these factors, Herbst said.
The Pennsylvania Medical Society said two in five teenagers believe that prescription drugs are safer than illegal drugs, and a third of teenagers believe there's nothing wrong with using medicines without a prescription once in a while. Thirty percent believe prescription pain relievers are not addictive, and more than half think using cough medicine to get high is not risky.
"Prescription drugs are not safe when taken by someone else," said Dr. Daniel Glunk, president of the society. "When used as prescribed, medications like painkillers, depressants and stimulants are certainly beneficial, but, in the wrong hands, they can be deadly."
Poray said a preoccupation with the so-called gateway drugs such as nicotine, alcohol and marijuana means that people don't notice prescription drug abuse. More teenagers are abusing prescription drugs than use street drugs such as cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine combined.
Teens will even use the Internet to learn about drugs they may find in their medicine cabinet, but they may not think about the long-term effects of abuse.
Treatment is difficult, he said.
"We haven't been very good at this," he said "We tend to look at kids as mini-adults, but they aren't the same."
"Often adolescents are trying to send a message (by abusing substances), but adults aren't listening," he went on. "We need to look at the whole picture, all aspects of the teen's life, or else we're spinning our wheels."
Both Poray and Herbst agree treatment is the key, but there is no cure for addiction. Lots of counseling, both one-on-one and group and family sessions, as well as support groups and mental health services, are needed to break the addictive behavior, they say.
"Treatment is much more complex that adult treatment," said Poray. "It's often the tip of the iceberg. Adolescent behavior often mirrors family issues."
The family must be involved, Herbst agreed.
"You have to be vigilant, to recognize why they abused to begin with," he said.
The family must be involved in the treatment, since kids often think they are the problem.
The Pennsylvania Medical Society recommends that all patients be careful with prescription medications, and they say parents should talk to their children about the dangers of taking meds without a prescription.
Since many people are on pain medications long-term, they may accumulate a large supply in their medicine cabinet. If a teenager pilfers a few, who will notice? Some pain medications, such as OxyContin and Percoset, can be sold on the street for as much as $40 per tablet.
"It's not uncommon to hear about patients or family members selling the pills to make a buck, especially in these hard times," said Dr. Adam Gordon of the PMS.
Poray said it's not just the kids from the wrong side of the tracks, either.
"Kids from good families get high to get noticed or accepted," he said. "They're under pressure to excel."
He has treated children as young as 8 or 9, he said, and some teenagers have been abusing for three years or more.
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