When a parent sends their child off to college, it can be a worrisome time. A parent can only hope that their child has learned enough valuable life lessons at home that they will have enough sense to stay out of trouble once they are out on their own. In a lot of cases, college is the first place that some young adults get exposed to drugs and alcohol. They feel the freedom of being out on their own and out from under the rule of their parents and sometimes they overindulge and experiment with things that they never would have dreamed of doing while still under their parents roofs. Parents should be realistic about the possibility of their children trying things that they probably would not approve of and just hope that the kid learned enough at home to not take it overboard.
Addiction Can Start in College
The sad fact of the matter is that there a lot of people who become addicted to drugs and alcohol in college. Alcohol is especially alluring for young adults because it is legal and socially acceptable, especially for young adults in college. There are often lots of parties where alcohol is served for people who are in college. Students work hard all week and then want to let off steam on the weekend by drinking and partying with their friends. The problem is that alcohol can be very addictive for some people and the time that a lot of people first encounter their bout of alcoholism is in college.
Drug addiction is the same way. Although alcohol is usually the drug of choice for most college students, there are still a lot of people out there who use other harder drugs while they are in school. Many young adults who may have never dreamed of using any type of drugs in high school go out on their own and get into social situations that they are not prepared for because they do not know anyone. When presented with these situations, the person may often find themselves trying things that they usually would not do to try to fit in or make friends. This is a way that some people are introduced to using drugs and some of these people get addicted. There are a few different types of people who are usually the most susceptible to this type of scenario. The first types are the ones that are maybe shy or have emotional or social issues and suffer from low self-esteem. This type of person may feel a false sense of bravado when they use drugs and they may feel that they are more able to let their guard down when they use and they continue to do so because they feel that it helps them socially. This type of person can easily become addicted when they are in college and they are constantly confronted with all types of new social situations.
The second type is the ones who may have seen addiction in their families and may not even know that addiction is not just a way of life. This type of person may somehow feel destined to use drugs or alcohol to excess because that’s what their parents did and they feel that that is just what most people do. Another type that is sometimes susceptible to falling into addiction is the very naïve type. This type of person may have never been around alcohol or drugs before in their lives and may be totally unprepared when confronted with them. They may have never been warned about the dangers of drugs and alcohol by their parents because it never occurred to the parents that it would someday be an issue. In these types of situations, the parents may be just as naïve as their children as far as drugs and alcohol are concerned so they are not equipped to give their children the information that they need to avoid this type of problem. When the kids are confronted with drugs they may not even realize that they are dangerous so they use them and they can get addicted to them with out even realizing before hand that there is a danger of this.
Prevention and Treatment
The best thing that a parent can do to prevent this from happening is to be open and honest with their kids before they go off to college and give them all the information about drugs and alcohol that they can. There are a lot of resources available that can offer parents advice on good ways to go about this. Narconon is one of the leaders in the drug education movement at this time and has tons of very helpful resources for parents when they are talking to their children about drugs and alcohol. It is good for parents to be discriminating when looking for information about alcohol and drug use one the internet because they can come across a lot of good information, but also a lot of bogus information and urban myths like the vodka tampon legend. Parents have enough to worry about without reading this kind ridiculous material that can just cause more confusion and be upsetting.
If a young adult does become addicted to drugs or alcohol while in college there are also many resources available for parents online as well. Intensive research should be done into the different types of treatment that one chooses because there are so many programs that have such little success when it comes to addiction. Narconon alcohol treatment and Narconon drug treatment is one of the most effective treatments available at this time. Narconon has one of the highest success rates worldwide for getting people off of drugs and alcohol, being at seventy six percent. Narconon counselors are available by telephone twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
