Help for troubled teens is available

Help for troubled teens comes in many forms—excuses aren't among them

Help for troubled teens is only a phone call away.  Children do not come with a set of instructions or even a troubleshooting guide, unfortunately.  However, parents do seem to be granted certain instincts that help them guide their children under normal circumstances.  The problems arise when circumstances are no longer normal and your instincts do not tell you that you must seek help.  When a parent begins to question whether or not they have the ability to cope with abnormal circumstances, they are probably already past the point where help is needed.  In that case, help for troubled teens must come from outside the family.  Conduct disorders, when they take on extreme behaviors, quickly move into the realm where professional advice and treatment become necessary.

Conduct disorders is a term that can stand for many inappropriate behaviors.  Among them are drug and alcohol use, unrelenting anger and stress, inability to act appropriately in social situations, emotional distress and outbursts , open defiance, and control issues.  When conduct disorders have run for six months or more, parents need to realize that they have a long-term, entrenched problem on their hands.  When disorderly behavior has run that long, it should be a sign to parents that they need help.  To think otherwise is to be in denial.

How common is drug and alcohol abuse among teenage boys?

Shocking to most of us who grew up in an entirely different generation, alcohol and drug experimentation in adolescence has become commonplace.  Teenagers, who normally consider themselves immune from consequences and largely indestructible, have a very difficult time coping with, and even understanding, the ramifications of drug and alcohol use.  Teenagers who are most affected by the destructive behavior of substance abuse include:

• Those with substance abuse in the family
• Those who are depressed
• Those suffering from low self-esteem
• Those who feel outside the mainstream

Cultural differences in your community could be contributing to the problem

Different cultures and environments have a profound effect.  In Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Arizona, and New Mexico, the isolation of a rural areas is isolating to some teenagers who simply have too much time on their hands.  Utah and Idaho, because of its strongly religious culture, tends to be very conservative and strict, but parents are more often in denial when their children get into trouble. 

For some reason, in Utah, street drugs—heroin, marijuana, cocaine, etc.—are taboo and use is low, but if a drug is prescribed—OxyContin, MSContin, Percodan,Percocet, or Demerol-- it is somehow okay.  Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Arizona, and Colorado are all in the top ten states for abuse of pain relievers, age 12 to 17. 

Nevada, with a backdrop of a more permissive culture, seems to have the opposite problem.  There is not as much expectation to be rigid about not experimenting.  Nevada leads the nation in meth and other stimulant use.  In age 12 to 17 meth-user groups, it's Nevada, Montana, Wyoming, Arizona, and New Mexico making up the top 5 states. 

Arizona culture is complicated by its proximity to the Mexican border and the mass quantities of drugs that are everywhere along the border.  Over 90% of the methamphetamine in Arizona is Mexican-made and smuggled across the border.  The drug dealers apply a lot of pressure close by and, unfortunately, much of it ends up in our children's bodies.  Each geographical area has its own peculiarities that can contribute to the problem and the problem will not go away anytime soon.  Drug and alcohol abuse has no prejudices; they are equal opportunity destroyers.

Is crystal meth (crystallized methamphetamine) any worse than anything else?

You bet it is!  If crystal meth has been introduced into your son's life, you need help right now.  If you do not understand the attraction for teenagers toward meth, you need to become educated about meth.  Cheap and easy to make, meth is horribly addictive.  One of the reasons is that it gives a teenager just exactly what he wants: a feeling of indestructibility, a sense of great power, the thought that the mind has been expanded and that he or she can understand greater things and have knowledge above others, and a feeling of great euphoria without a care in the world.  Worst of all, meth takes away all care and feelings, social and mental growth. 

Meth is addictive from first exposure.  In a recent interview with a 20 year-old prison inmate incarcerated for crimes linked to his meth habit, he stated that the one thing that parents should know to protect their children from meth is that the worst thing a parent can do is make excuses for it.  Meth is horribly corrosive to the body.  A teenager on meth for a year or two can become almost unrecognizable.  If meth has entered you life, you need help, and you need it now.  Putting it off, even for a minute, is destructive.   Meth is not a bad habit; meth is destruction in progress.

The Cultural Effects on Behavior Work Both Ways

Real help for troubled teens such as those suffering the effects of drug and alcohol abuse comes from a needed change in environment and culture.  Arivaca Boys Ranch provides both an environment and culture that opens closed minds and puts back self-esteem.  Through academic recovery, individual and group therapy, and good, hard, productive work on a working horse ranch, the staff at Arivaca Boys Ranch has a lot of experience at straightening out the crooked thinking that has evolved in a boy's conduct disorder, whatever it might be.

Arivaca Boys Ranch can take on the problems and return you solutions

The professional staff at Arivaca Boys Ranch is here for one purpose: to return teenage boys to a track toward a productive and positive adult life.  Skilled therapists and counselors are on hand to help your son develop strategies for maintaining a strong grip on progress and growth.  If you have become troubled with the conduct disorders of your teenage son, even if you just want to talk it out and see what we can do to help, counselors are here to help you.  Parents remain an integral part of all therapy.  Contact us and let us tell you what we can do to help you.

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