Drug and Alcohol Addiction Intervention

Alcohol is the number one drug-of-choice in this country for young people between the ages of twelve and twenty and the leading cause of death for persons under twenty-one.

Warning signs may include:

• parents or spouse complain about use of alcohol or drugs
• friends and/or relatives suspect drug use
• other family members have sought help for drug or alcohol problems
• losing friends because of use of alcohol or drugs
• missing work or losing a job
• neglecting family
• getting into fights when using drugs or alcohol
• being arrested
• getting a DUI
• illegal activity
• withdrawal symptoms
• memory loss, hepatitis, convulsions
• hospitalization, DT’s
• unable to stop using for a sustained period of time
• drinking or using drugs after making promises not to

Forty percent of those who begin drinking before the age of fifteen will meet the criteria for alcohol dependence at some point in their lives. In 2003 there were an estimated nineteen million Americans over the age of twelve who were current users of illicit drugs. Over half of American teenagers had tried illicit drugs by the time they finished high school. Marijuana was still the most widely used with over fourteen million current users in 2003. Over seventeen percent of eighth graders reported using inhalants at least one time in their lifetime. The current focus on Meth is obscuring the growing problem of the use of pain medications by teenagers.