Special skills are required when using an intervention on adolescents and.  Modern society has exposed adolescents to a range of substances. Dealing with chemical dependency in young people is to deal with it as a family issue as opposed to dealing with them alone.

There are many reasons that could trigger drug use in adolescents and young adults, some of the greater risks are during times of transition, for example, when schools and neighborhoods are changed and divorce.  Another point to look at is when children advance from elementary school to high school and they have to face new challenges, socially and academically, to fit in, they tend to go with the crowd, so if the crowd is smoking cigarettes, so will they and this is where the peer pressure sets in.

It is no wonder why young people who abuse alcohol and drugs often have problems with family, school, health related, and involvement with the juvenile justice system.

Many of them function through their days so they believe it is your problem and they can control how much they are using or abusing, until it gets out of hand.

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Behavioral modification

What is behavior?

Behavior is the way a person acts towards people, society or objects, it can be either good or bad, it can be normal or abnormal according to the view of society and society will always try to correct bad behavior and to bring abnormal behavior back to normal.

There are a few root causes that makes behavior differences, such as, individual differences (people set in their ways) family patterns, impairment, environment factors and psychological factors.  When behavior becomes a problem behavioral modification is essential.

Behavioral modification is the use of observed demonstrated behavior change techniques to increase adaptive behavior through reinforcement and/or the reduction of maladaptive behavior through extinction, punishment or therapy.

Before a behavioral modification could be performed, a functional behavioral assessment must be done in order to understand the behavior.  In order to understand the behavior, an ABC approach method is used and that is the observations of antecedents, behaviors, and consequences that take place.  What this means is before the behavior is assess, you need to know what came directly before the behavior, what does the behavior look like and what comes directly after the behavior.

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The 12 step method

The 12 step method is not only about stopping substance use, it’s also about how to live life without substance dependency or removing obstacles in your way.  Sometimes it is just unhappiness that places us in despondency.

People are unhappy when things are not going their way in life, when someone is not satisfied with certain aspects of their lives.  Maybe it is not even about drugs, it could be anything other than drugs, maybe a relationship, maybe a friendship, maybe something you feel guilty about, whatever it is, could drive you to substance abuse, so before it gets there, you can attend a 12 step meeting which is free of charge, many people refrain from getting help because they don’t have the money to seek help.

The codes of the 12 step are the codes to life, it is a model for self change, and you don’t have to have an addiction problem to benefit from the 12 steps.

What does the 12 step entails?  This is how I view the steps and also in regard to obstacles in the way, hopefully I can help some people because I know it is difficult for some people to comprehend.

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Many people who have substance abuse problems are not aware of how these substances came about; the following is a briefing of the origin and ideas of the substances rampant among our society:

Heroin or diacetylmorphine or diamorphine is a natural opioid, synthesized directly from the extracts of the opium poppy.  It is the 3.6 – diacetyl derivatives of morphine and is synthesized from it by acetylation.  The opium poppy has been used since early Mesopotamian times, basically in the form of codeine and morphine.  Heroin was first synthesized in 1874 by C.R Alder Write, an English chemist who worked at St. Mary’s hospital and medical school in London England.  From 1898 to 1910 heroin was not illegal but became illegal in 1914.

Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant.  It was first concocted by the German chemist Friedrich Gaedeke in 1855.  In 1859, Albert Niemann, a PH.D student at the University of Gottingen in Germany developed an improved purification process and named the alkaloid cocaine.  In 1886 Coca-Cola was invented and its original formula included cocaine but it was eliminated in 1903 and became illegal in 1914.  Crack is a form of cocaine base that was created from the basuco formula “allegedly” by the CIA in Nicaragua in the 1980s.

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Teen addiction

It is really more tough for the teenagers who are experiencing substance abuse problems, for the fact that there minds are not fully developed as yet to handle the trials and tribulations of life, and this is what puts them at such a high risk of having teen addiction.

It is not there intentions to go out and become substance addicts, there main criteria is to go out and have fun and seek adventures, learning experiences, but drugs are there to intercept natural fun for fun anyways, but at the end someone’s life is jeopardized.

Teens are not fully aware of the dangers of drugs and how it can become dangerous, they haven’t really seen or understood the type of effects of negative consequences that could manifest due to substance abuse and addiction.

The legal drugs, such as tobacco and alcohol, which is so widely used and have a high addictive quality, is a norm for teens to try and use due to peer pressure of fitting in and being adult, they all want to do adult things, but unable to recognize the consequences of being adult.

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Gambling addiction

What Is Gambling Addiction?

Gambling addiction is an impulsive control problem, where the setting of choice is as changeable as the person addicted to gambling.  The list is long as to the different types of gambling choices, online gambling is getting more popular as opposed to people going out to the casinos.

Although more men are susceptible to gambling addiction which usually starts at a young age, probably during the teen years and play more games such as black jack, poker, sports betting but more and more women are developing this disorder mainly at a later age in life.  Estimates have shown that people who gamble socially have a two to five percent chance of becoming addicted to gambling where women accounts for twenty five percent of that chance.

The risk factors involved for gambling addiction are schizophrenia, moodiness, antisocial, alcohol, cocaine and people with low level of serotonin in the brain which can lead to the symptoms such as preoccupied with thoughts of gambling, need of more and more money, gambling to escape problems or reduce sadness, losing money but still gambling, lying, committing crimes to finance gambling, depending on others for money and risking important relationships.

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Recovery

In order to accomplish recovery, you have to change certain things in your life that you did before and look closely at the high risk situations such as relating with certain people who were involved with your using, certain places where you used and things that are associated with using, coming in contact with any of these situations could work against recovery.

There comes a point when even recreational substance users are fearful of becoming addicted, but because it is recreational, the danger of tolerance is hard to see at that distance until it begins to form a habit, like let us say every Thursday, then it moves to every Thursday and Friday and before you realize the pattern, it has become almost everyday, I think money is a factor with these type of equations, if money was available all the time, it would definitely be a daily use.

Someone asked me the other day, what is the difference between her, who is a functional substance abuser and her mate, who is a non functional substance abuser, meaning he does crazy things like stealing to get his use and as a result winds up in jail, goes to rehab, comes out and does the same thing again, why, because everyone he knows, his so called friends and acquaintance are all users or dealers, so his recovery is almost impossible, and moving is not an option especially when you have no where else to go and you are with someone who lives in an low cost housing home.  I told her it was her stability that is the difference, but nevertheless she is still a substance abuser.

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Preventing a relapse

A way to prevent a relapse is to be totally aware of what is involved, because relapse is a process, meaning that there are stages that you automatically go through on the way to recovery.   Emotional, mental and physical relapse are the three stages you can go through.

The emotional relapse signs which are also the symptoms of post acute withdrawal (read article on withdrawal), so if you understand the symptoms it would be easier to avoid relapsing.  Symptoms are anxiety, intolerance, anger, mood swings, isolation, poor eating and sleeping habits, etc.

In the early stages of preventing a relapse you are acknowledging that you are in an emotional relapse and that your behavior is changing which would involve isolation, where you should ask for help, anxiety, where you should learn to practice relaxation techniques, abnormal eating and sleeping habits, this is where you should exercise self care.

If at this point your behavior is not changed and emotional relapse is continuing there is a great chance of becoming frustrated and when you become frustrated you may start to use again, self care is essential at this phase of the process.

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All drugs are different and because they are different, the withdrawal symptom of each drug that a person has stopped taking varies as to whether it is emotional or physical.  Some drugs like alcohol, opiates and tranquilizers have significant physical withdrawals along with emotional withdrawal, whereas drugs like cocaine, marijuana and ecstasy have emotional withdrawal and some people could experience very little withdrawal despite the drug in use.

The symptoms that could occur with emotional withdrawal are anxiety, insomnia, headaches, a lack of concentration, depression and social isolation.

The symptoms of physical withdrawal are sweating, palpitations, muscle tension, breathing difficulties, nausea, vomiting or diarrhea.

Alcohol and tranquilizers emit the most dangerous physical withdrawal because stopping to use alcohol or tranquilizer abruptly can lead to seizures or heart attack in high risk patients.  Going through a medically administered detox program can limit some withdrawal symptoms and reduce risky complications.

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Why wait for Rock Bottom

Although, some people are not addicted to substances, they still abuse those substances, could be drugs or alcohol, it’s funny though, how some people refuse to accept the fact that even though they are not potentially affected by drug or alcohol use, by continuing using, they can be at risk of addiction.  Most people wait until they have suffered more than enough negative consequences to seek some kind of help, but why wait for rock bottom!

Things can get worse when it all comes crashing down on you.  Even though life is predictable, there is always an unknown, the chaotic factor, who hovers in the air ready to challenge us in every way possible.  Knowing that life is predictable, is to look at the paths you’ve chosen in life, the element always attract, so if you continue to abuse a substance of whatever sort, only negative consequences would be the results, because eventually, even if you are not aware and you are functioning, something is going wrong somewhere else in your body, the effects appear later in life.

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