Have you ever wondered if teenage addiction to alcohol and drugs equal to bad habit? Yes, it is true that it’s a bad habit that is not only endangering their physical health but also their mental health. Nations are losing man power as a result of this bad habit. If you look at the model of it the proof is staggering.

Take for instance the bad habits of smoking, people who engage in this activity feel quite persecuted. At the moment the practice is not illegal but society as a whole have decided to shun those who partake.

Not that long ago teenagers could smoke just about everywhere, including hospitals! There were instances even fathers would light up in the waiting room while their wives were in labor. This began to change and they could only smoke is specific rooms. It did not take long before smoking was only allowed in specific areas outside of the building.

Today you will find bars, restaurants, motels and even cities that are completely smoke free. This has forced teenagers who are addicted to give up the bad habit, and truthfully, they no longer remember how bad the addiction was.

To protect others from the health risks of second hand smoke, many smokers have started using smokeless tobacco products. Even though there is no smoke involved the nicotine in these products is still highly addictive.

Would you believe that sleeping pills are another example of bad habits? Over time, teenagers become so addicted in that they need more and more of the drug to fall asleep. After awhile the pills will not help and many may even overdose trying to get to sleep. This type of teenage addiction usually requires the help of a doctor or sleep clinic to fix.

Drinking alcohol to excess is another teenage addiction. If they’re medically or physically impaired, it can be extremely risky for them to consume alcohol. Certain medications do not mix well with alcohol. Of course, if they’re addicted to alcohol these warnings will fall on deaf ears.

A very dangerous variety of teenage addiction is drugs. The number of illegal drugs available at any given moment are too numerous to even count. Each drug will have differing effects. They always quickly and devastate their health. Some of the drugs are not as bad in the short term. Overall, they are still bad habits.

You can find the recreational type drugs such as heroin, cocaine, LCD, Ecstasy and other hallucinogens. The effects and addictive qualities of these so-called club drugs are nasty. On the other hand, some teenagers find themselves addicted to prescription remedies for common ailments. Drugs such as muscle relaxants and painkillers are addictive bad habits.

We should all be under no illusions – alcohol can be extremely dangerous for children and teenagers, and you are right to be concerned if you think that your child is drinking. While a single glass of wine for a 16-year-old at a family dinner can help your children to understand the boundaries of social drinking, illicit binge drinking, especially of spirits, is damaging to a child’s health, can be life-threatening and can lead to extremely risky behaviour.

Figures vary depending on where you look, but it is estimated that up to 80 per cent of early sexual experiences occur under the influence of alcohol and the vast majority of these are subsequently regretted.

So what can you do to protect your children? The first thing is to understand if your child is drinking at all and to do this you need to be aware of where your child is at all times. If they are out with friends, always make sure that you see them on their return, and engage them in conversation. If they smell of alcohol, or strongly of mints, or of a different perfume, then you are right to be suspicious.

Changes in behaviour

Keep them talking and you’ll be able to see if there is a difference in their behaviour – are they more sparkling, or more volatile than usual? If you are worried that you don’t know if what your child is drinking is too much or not, then remember this: the safest approach to take is that any unsupervised alcohol is too much.

You’re right not to be naïve about parties, even those supervised at home by other parents. Children – teenagers especially, and even the most law-abiding and delightful ones – need to try to break the rules, and are extraordinarily ingenious when it comes to doing so. Drink can easily be smuggled in to houses in bags, and innocent-looking water bottles can easily contain vodka. Parties with sleepovers usually mean that parents go to bed before their charges, and it is then that the hidden stash of wine or spirits can appear.

Share your concerns

Share your concerns with the people supervising the party, talk to your sons to set out your expectations, and follow this up afterwards. If you are in any doubt about a party, put your foot down – hard though this will be – and weather the storm (but replace it with something else amazing with you and your family).

Talking to your children about alcohol is really important, and – like talking about sex – is best introduced from an early age as a part of an ongoing conversation about what is right and what is wrong in life. Expressing disapproval or concern over drunken behaviour is a good way to start to get the message across to young children that alcohol can lead people to do things that make them look silly.

Learning experience

As children grow older, the key to effective discussion is an open relationship where you allow your child or teenager to talk comfortably to you – easier said than done, admittedly, but the secret to this is to listen, listen, listen, and help your child reach conclusions by talking through their thoughts. They are going to make mistakes – statistics show that they are likely to try alcohol and over-indulge before the age of 18 on at least one occasion, and if this can be turned into a learning experience, then this is all to the good.

Of course, you are an extremely important role model for your children. They need to see sensible behaviour from you in this respect if you are to have any chance of guiding their actions – they will do as you do, not just as you say …

Don’t be afraid to seek help if you suspect that your child is drinking too much, and if you want to know more, a useful starting point is www.drinkaware.co.uk, which has an excellent section on the facts of alcohol, as well as a really useful page on how to introduce the topic with your children, and follow it through.

Teenage drug rehabs over the past few years have strongly hinted at the unrealistic expectations put forth by parents on their kids.   Depression is definitely one of the biggest concerns of teens today and the days are gone, when we would associate the feelings of depression and stress with older people. Teens are now the most vulnerable segment when it comes to being prone to depression.

The modern-age jet age pushes the teen down with a lot of new sets of tensions and anxieties. Yes, he is not yet in a corporate environment fighting for his promotion but there are lots of other concerns that can trigger teen substance abuse. For instance, the teenager has to deal with academic problems adding to the fact that there are a lot of expectations put on him by parents to get good grades in this hugely contested atmosphere. Parents take huge study loans and have stars in their eyes about their son and daughter’s academic pursuits while the children may have different aspirations altogether.

 There are relationship problems as well which can be quite upsetting to many teenagers when things do not go their way. There are different ways in which kids (and even adults) can converse with each other, telephone, , voice-chat, social networking sites. All of them serve as potential dating and flirting points of contacts. A teenager may become a victim of sexual abuse through any of these forms of media. There was a report a couple of years ago of a teen committing suicide because her ‘friend’ online was not reciprocating to her anymore; this considering the fact that she had never met her!

 There are health concerns among teenagers; there are many girls who pop in prescription pills for something as normal as getting some pounds more or menstrual discomfort, without even consulting doctors. Girls are known to go on a binge eating spree, where they eat everything and then rush to the loo to vomit it out due to feelings of guilt. Anorexia is also a serious psychological problem among teens.  This is a phase which is the foundation of health for an individual and teens with their myriad set of unhealthy perceptions ruin it. This is purely because today there is no guidance available to them and what is present is also in the form of media overkill. 

Teen treatment centers are attending to the rising number of alcohol and drug addictions. There have been a high number of cases of rave parties getting busted by the cops that are not just participated but even organized by teens.  Alcohol, heroin, cocaine and the party drug ‘ecstasy’ are known   flow freely in these circuits. All of these cases shout loudly pointing at one fact: parents and guardians are losing control over their kids and are not able to guide them clearly. The fact that they are either indifferent or exercise too much pressure on them do not make things easy at all.  At teen rehab centers, not only teens get fully treated off their addiction and problems but even parents are guided to be the part of a positive change.

Simply put, teenage binge drinking is drinking to get drunk – a self-destructive and unrestrained drinking bout. During the drinking binge the heavily intoxicated drinker ignores responsibilities, squanders money, and engages in all manner of harmful behaviours that may well bring them into contact with the police or emergency services.

Binge drinking is now a problem in many western countries, even though individual countries have different tolerance levels of binge drinkers. In the United States, binge drinking is the consuming of four or more drinks by a woman, or five or more drinks by a man on any particular occasion.

In the United Kingdom, binge drinking is commonly defined as consuming 11 or more drinks on any particular occasion. This is more than double what is considered binge drinking in the USA – yet teenage binge drinking in the United Kingdom is now so serious, the British Government is about to bring in measures to tackle the problem.

What’s the problem?

Teenage binge drinking is irresponsible; heavy drinking that often comes under the disguise of fun and games. Binge drinking is terribly dangerous to the drinker and to the people around them.

Risks to the binge drinker include:

– Getting into trouble with the police
– Driving a car after drinking
– Alcohol poisoning; a severe and potentially fatal physical reaction to an alcohol overdose.
– Getting hurt or injured
– Damaging property
– Missing work
– Not using protection when having sex
– Engaging in unplanned sexual activity

Risks to people around binge drinkers:

– Being pushed, hit or assaulted
– Experiencing an unwanted sexual advances or assault
– Having property damaged
– Having leisure time or sleep interrupted
– Having a serious argument
– Being insulted or humiliated

Why do teenagers do it?

– To get drunk
– For status associated with drinking
– Culture of alcohol consumption
– Peer pressure
– Stress

Are you a teenager and do you have a binge-drinking problem? Do you recognise any of these harmful and destructive behaviours in your own life:

– Are you drinking more heavily and more often?
– Are you drinking to “get drunk”
– Is your drinking affecting your work or upsetting your partner or family?

What can you do?

Luckily, there’s an effective solution to binge drinking – Hypnotherapy and NLP. We all tend to be miss-programmed by negative input in some way and neuro-linguistic programming reprograms the mind for a positive outcome. Hypnotherapy puts the mind in a state that will accept the NLP re-programming more readily, so NLP and hypnotherapy combined are a very effective combination.

By using a combination of hypnotherapy and NLP, you can re-program your teenage binge drinking behaviour in a few hours. You can stop binge drinking by re-programming your brain – you can get a trained hypnotherapist to do this, or you can do-it-yourself by using a self-help download. Either way the result is the same – to change your usual self-destructive “drink to get drunk” activities to a pleasant “have a few drinks and have a good time”.

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