Young people are dying. They are overdosing on almost all medications nowadays, and even basic prescription drugs have not been left out.
You wonder; how did this young person get to this horrible spot in life? Let’s go back in time, to understand how addiction starts, and how to prevent it from happening. While each addiction situation is different, there are generally three ingredients;

• Pressure: Contrary to popular opinion, children of nowadays have a lot to cope with. Some are trying to figure out: who am I? What is my identity? And there is stress. When teens were asked, they said the number reason they used drugs was to deal with the pressure at school and some teens have to cope with stress at home. There could be emotional neglect, abuse, divorce, a family member with an illness, a family member who is addicted, the death of a loved one, money troubles, or other challenges. Many teens also need to cope with depression or social anxiety.
• Poor coping skills: Many teenagers, through no fault of their own, have poor coping skills. Maybe their parent or parents have been caught up in their work or other family crisis and do not even realize that their teenage child needs help. Maybe their parent or parents are struggling themselves, and are simply not able to teach their kids how to constructively cope with life, and teens who experience day-to-day depression or social anxiety may develop an unwarranted self-image, this can make it tougher to cope.
• Certain brain chemistry: Some people, by virtue of how their brain processes chemicals, get hooked easier. You can attribute this to your family tree, otherwise known as genetics. Genetic susceptibility doesn’t have to be present for a teenager to develop an addiction, but it can increase their chances.

All three of these pieces do not have to be present for addiction to happen. Any one piece, if strong enough, can lead a teen down the addiction path. So how does addiction start? Here is what happens:

The teen’s brain learns that at least in the short term, the alcohol or drugs gives them a way to temporarily neglect or forget the stresses in their life. This is a flawed way of coping that can become their identity. The party friend who is willing to try anything or the friend who can get you drugs. It might give them a way to fit-in socially and have fun. It might help them for a moment to forget about their stress. The teen starts using alcohol/drugs more frequently; this is where things come apart.

Repeated use does three things: the teens brain has learned that in the short-term, alcohol/drugs can help them cope. With repeated use, this bad learning loop becomes ingrained and deeper. The teenager gets to the point of automatically reaching for alcohol or drugs when they’re stressed without even thinking about it. With repeated use, the alcohol and chemical and drugs also change the brain, making the teenager less self-aware of how they are going off the rails and repeated use makes life situations worse which just increases stress, and feeds into the negative loop without a change, this path ends in addiction, a life of crime, or death.

So how do we prevent addiction? Here’s how:
First a message for parents: spend concentrated 1-on-1 time with your kids particularly kids in secondary school or boarding school. Truly listen to them with love and without judgment. Understand what they are coping with, help them get through. If you need help, talk to an experienced professional. Do not assume they can self-correct. They need an established support system and help them immediately.