Drugs of any kind are a worldwide problem in pre-teens and teenagers, but if you live in the L.A. area, you are fortunate to have some of the best treatment centers available to help. Whether its alcohol or other substance abuse or dependency, getting a teen the help they need right away might literally mean the difference between life and death – particularly when there are other co-occurring issues to deal with. For this reason, centers which provide adolescent drug treatment in Los Angeles are the best option when you really want to help a struggling teen to get clean for good.
Los Angeles Adolescent Drug Treatment
Teenagers don’t know how bad drugs and alcohol affect them, which is why when alcohol and drug abuse becomes apparent they need to get help right away. Drugs and alcohol may just start out as a harmless experiment at first, but they all eventually lead down the same road towards self-destruction.
While sometimes a teen is great at hiding the devastating effects of a drug dependency, there are signs which are easier to see if you are paying attention. A teen may have sudden changes in their attitude, their grades may suffer, they may go through periods of extreme emotions (both joy and sadness or depression), or they may even begin changing the way they dress or the friends they hang out with. It’s the subtle changes which many parents usually miss, but if your parental spidey-senses are tingling to tell you something is wrong, then there probably is.
Who Needs Help?
Teens and pre-teens who need help with substance abuse and dependency don’t generally just need to treat a drug problem, there are usually underlying issues as well. Commonly referred to as co-occurring issues, these include a variety of mental health issues such as anxiety, depression or being bi-polar, which are usually enablers of addictive tendencies and can cause generic, impersonalized treatment programs to fail miserably. Some of these mental health challenges include those related to traumatic experience or stress, but others might be from chemical imbalances or the inability to cope. Regardless of the reason, teens need to be comprehensively treated and taken care of before any more damage to their life is sustained as a result of an unchecked addiction or disorder. So when you enroll your child into an adolescent drug treatment program, be sure it’s equipped to treat the entire person; the mental processes which lead to addiction as well as the physical dependency.
Adolescent drug treatment centers in the Los Angeles area are usually able to assist teens in dealing with anxiety, depression, PTSD, phobias, panic disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), oppositional defiant disorder and impulse control disorders. They should also be able to treat teens and young adolescents who suffer from Attention Deficient Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Attention Deficient Disorder (ADD), and know how all of these co-occurring problems relate to drug dependency. In some instances, schizophrenia and bi-polar disorders may be present, so recognizing these conditions are imperative to proper adolescent drug treatment as well.
While it’s easy to say you’re going to get your struggling teen the help they need, finding the right adolescent drug treatment center in Los Angeles may not be as easy as it seems. However, if you are looking for a facility which can treat the whole person and focuses on total healing in both body and mind, then Adolescent Growth can help. Not only to they focus on programs to treat the individual, but they seek to heal the family and help your teen grow into a healthy, responsible young adult.
