Drug Counselor Video Transcription
“At what point should I start thinking about getting drug treatment for my child? It’s hard for most parents to believe that their child might be caught up in alcohol or other drug use and in need of professional help. They don’t realize that. They need to know that it’s okay to reach out for professional help and to do it early on.
Don’t feel bad if you don’t see the warning signs until your child is in trouble or until someone had told you about a drug-alcohol problem in your family. When most parents find out about their child’s drug abuse, they feel shocked and stunned and wonder where they went wrong. Don’t let that get in the way.
Many children and teens feel great pressure to try alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs. They’re flooded with pro-use messages from their friends, from alcohol and tobacco advertising and marketing, from the movies they see, music and music videos, and the websites that appeal to youth.
Parents often feel that they have less time to spend with their equally-busy child and have fewer chances to keep track of their activities and friendships and influences. It’s the reality of what we face today in our society. Parents feel like they’re not ready to guide their children on serious matters like alcohol and drug abuse, but don’t let these things get in the way.
Try not to blame yourself or your child if he or she has a substance abuse. The most important thing is to act and to act the right way on any suspicions that you may have. Find the best available services to help your child stop using drugs and alcohol and to begin building a drug-free future. Don’t dismiss your hunches or your gut-level feelings. You have a right to respectfully investigate.

If you have a feeling or evidence of any substance abuse, finding paraphernalia, or the other warning signs, you can get your child help. Don’t wait. Don’t wait to see if it gets better but be preventative. As with any illness or medical problem, early intervention and treatment of your child’s substance abuse raises the chances of successful results. The sooner your child gets help, the less harm her or his drug or alcohol problem may cause and the better her chances or his chances are of developing a healthy, safe, and drug-free lifestyle.
With your encouragement and support and an effective treatment, what now is a painful family experience can become a positive step towards a happy and fulfilling future.”

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Drug Counselor Video Transcription
“The question of prescription drugs or over-the-counter medicine is a really, really important question in America today. The United States of America is probably the greatest drug consuming nation on the planet, and so it’s really important for parents to be aware of what’s taking place in their home.
The acronym I like to use is the LOCK. Each letter of the acronym is going to stand for something that a parent should be aware of when it comes to over-the-counter meds and prescription meds. The L, of course, is easy. It stands for “lock” it up. With controlled substances, it’s extremely important that those remain only in the hands of the person who the medicine is prescribed to. So if you have a safe cabinet with a nice lock, keep them in there.
The Oh, throw “out” expired medicine or any other over-the-counter medicines that aren’t being used. Parents, for the most part, know that when a medicine is expired it doesn’t work. Throw that stuff out. It’s really important to really maintain the most up-to-date view of what’s happening in your home.
The C stands for being “conscious,” conscious of the medicines that are actually absolutely necessary to have around the house. Again, with the advent of prescription medicine abuse, it’s really important to only have medicines that are actually being used by the family and being aware of what is actually necessary to be in the home.
Finally, the K stands for “keep” aware of the friends that your children have. It’s also important to keep the medicine away of course, but again, given the advent of prescription medicine abuse, we want to really be aware, keep aware of the people that your children hang out with.”

Drug Counselor Video Transcription

“We have parents come into our facility kind of challenged by how much trauma has impacted their family by their sons or daughters drug use and they feel pretty guilty about how the rest of the children have been treated, as they have been trying to support their son or daughter through this terrible disease called alcoholism or drug dependency.
I think the best advice we usually give parents is be really frank, really be honest with your kids about the situation, don’t try to hide it. Let them know that this is a health care issue that it is a chronic disease, there are really no known cures but with lots of treatment and lots of support your brother or your sister can actually get better.
It is our hope all the time that families will approach this in terms of being quite honest with each other about what the situation is. For example, we encourage families to get to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Family counseling is really important, so the little brothers and sisters can really understand that my brother or sister is a bad person but they are actually suffering from a disease, something that is a health issues and the family has to come together and try to make sure that that kid is OK.
Finally, I guess that the last thing I would say to a parent is it is really important for the whole family to recognize that the long a brother or sister can stay in drug treatment the more opportunities they will be able to have to get for example; their high school diploma, to get a job. In other words, the longer they are able to be sober the more opportunity they will be able to have to do things throughout their lives.”

Drug Counselor Video Transcription
“…if you think of trends, we kind of make sure that we’re real clear about what we’re looking at today as opposed to maybe 30 years ago. One of the things that – let’s start with the positive first. I think the positive thing is that when you look at national figures as well as state figures, the use of actually cigarettes and alcohol has actually been the lowest, which might surprise all of you in the last 30 years. Contrary to maybe popular myth, the use of alcohol is also down amongst eighth graders, tenth graders, and twelfth graders. I like to tell parents that if you think about the 10%, 20%, and 30% rule, it’s interesting that yes, although experimentation does pick up as our kids get older, it’s actually very, very low right now.

There are areas of concern though, which I really want to talk about, and I think that’s what this question is getting at. Marijuana use, for example, has not gone down. It has actually been steady over the last ten years and this harkens back to the way I opened up. Marijuana being used today by our teens is a lot more potent than it was in the 70s. It’s grown hydroponically. It’s grown out of water, and so the marijuana that was being consumed back in the 70s may have had potency of maybe 5% of THC. Today, it’s anywhere from 18% to 24% for the THC, so that’s a real area of concern.

Of course, what we shall talk about later is this real increase in prescription drug abuse. Fifty percent of seniors across the country, seniors in high school it is, they’re reporting that they have either been given Vicodin, OxyContin from relatives or are being sold by kids on campus, so we want to be really aware of that.”

Drug Counselor Video Transcription
“Chicago and its suburban counties continue to suffer the worst heroin problem in America according to a new study. Nearly 24,000 people in the area were admitted to hospitals in 2008 due to heroin, more than any of the other twelve major cities in the study. This study released in June of 2010 by the Illinois Consortium on Drug Policy at Roosevelt University also showed that overdose deaths from heroin were rising quickly in the suburbs, and also that more inmates in Cook County Jail have been testing positive for the drug.
There are four main circumstances that contribute to the increased use. First, the demographics have expanded. It used to be thought that most heroin users were Vietnam veterans and African-American males. But in the last twenty years, we’ve seen a much broader group, starting with the eighteen- to 24-year-olds in the suburbs and in the Caucasian population.
Second, the increased availability. It continues to be more widely accessible to a broader population and it contributes to the increase of the use of heroin. Heroin is more available than ever before. It comes from four main sources: Southeast Asia, Southwest Asia, South America, and Mexico; and Chicago, being a transportation hub, has access into this area.
Finally, there’s decreased cost. Kids can now try heroin for less than $10.00 and if they’re lucky, they’ll never try it again. Heroin is cheap but most that try heroin get hooked. People find that the inexpensive drug is something they think they can control, but they end up not being able to stop their use because of the highly addictive nature of heroin.”
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Drug Counselor Video Transcription
“Adolescence is the time when many young people believe that the world revolves around themselves and that they think they’re ultimately in control of what happens in their lives. The wilderness, which is inherently uncontrollable, strips away that illusion of control, encouraging young people to see life from what it truly is. Rather than focusing on only one self as the most important entity in the world, participants in wilderness therapy begin to see that they’re part of a larger, more enduring reality.
One of the initial goals in working with a teenager who’s dealing with substance abuse is to remove them from the destructive environment that perpetuates their addiction. The wilderness environment offers a drug-free lifestyle that includes a healthy diet, intense physical exercise, and teaching of basic survival and self-care skills. The teens are also removed from the trappings of their former environment including numerous distractions of adolescent culture.
Another benefit of wilderness therapy is teaching of personal and social responsibility. Natural consequences and peer interactions are strong therapeutic influences in helping the teens learn to accept personal and social responsibility. Self-care and personal responsibility are facilitated by natural consequences in the wilderness, not by authority figures whom many substance-abusing teens are prone to resist. If they choose not to set up their tent and it rains, the teen gets wet. There’s no one to blame but themselves. Then the goal is to get the teens to generalize these interactions and metaphors of self-care and natural consequences to their real life and to back home with everyday interactions they have at school, with friends, and with family.”

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Drug Counselor Video Transcription

“If you get a positive drug test result for your teen, you may want to consider the following suggestions.

Talk with your child. Open and honest communication is very important in parenting, especially when your child is involved in high-risk behaviors like drug use. Remind them of what your expectations are and that not using drugs is important to you as a parent and reiterate any of the consequences that there will be if they continue to use.

You will want to let them know that you have factual information that shows that they’ve been using. Be prepared that your child may deny that the test is accurate. Denial is very common in youth that have been abusing drugs. Stand firm and let your child know that you would be willing to have another test done, and will continue to have tests done, until they test clean or that there are no drugs in their system.

Retesting is very important. Now that you have evidence that your child has used drugs, you will want to test them randomly. You will want to make sure that your child is not expecting when that next test will occur. You certainly will always want to retest them if in fact there has been an incident where you suspect that they’ve been using.

One important thing to know is that drugs stay in our bodies long after that drug use, and the drug how long they stay in the body varies depending on the drug. Marijuana, for example, the active ingredient, the THC can stay in the body up to 30 days. Cocaine, other narcotics, for example, metabolize much quicker and are out of the body in two or three days. If you suspect that your child may be using one of these particular drugs, you may want to retest in that frequency.

You want to avoid power struggles with your teen when it comes to drug use. You want to let your teen know that you definitively will continue to drug test them. It is very important that you follow through on this. Know [the] drugs.

You want to be able to hold your child accountable for their actions and help them see that their drug use not only has an impact on them but it impacts the entire family. You want to give them consequences that help deter them from using drugs. For example, if they have access to the family car, you might want to take that privilege away until they can demonstrate that they have clean drug screens or that your confidence has been restored in their decision-making.

You may want to consider for your child if they test positive for a drug test to have them be a part of substance abuse counseling. If your child is using drugs in spite of them knowing that you don’t agree with it, that it’s illegal, that it’s harmful to their health, and they continue to use, your child may be at risk of addiction. Good substance abuse counseling is going to help your child to honestly acknowledge their level of use. It’s going to have them know what their actions have in terms of impact to their family and to themselves. You may also want to provide them some alternatives and other things that they can do other than use drugs to connect with peers, to manage their stress, and to have fun.

Lastly, become knowledgeable as a parent about drugs. Do your research. Look in libraries, internet. They all have an abundant amount of material about what’s going on in the teen culture and drug use. Many kids like to say to their parents, “All kids use,” or, “It’s a phase all kids go through.” This simply is not true. Not all kids are abusing drugs. Your child needs you as an advocate, to stand behind them, to give them factual information about drugs that are going on in their community and at their school, and give them a pathway to finding alternatives into using drugs.”

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Drug Counselor Video Transcription:

“The most commonly abused prescription drugs pretty much fall into three areas. There are the opioids, which are most oftenly prescribed to treat pain. For example, OxyContin (oxycodone). These, actually, have probably gotten the most media coverage, but codeine is something that’s prescribed in Tylenol 3.

The second family of drugs in the central nervous system, depressants, which are used to treat anxiety and sleep disorders. For example, Xanax and Ambien. Then finally, the family of stimulants, really to treat patients who may have been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or ADHD. Examples, of course, would be Adderall and Vyvanse.

Why do people abuse these? Why is it so common lately? Probably because of the easy accessibility to it and availability, and more and more people are being diagnosed with ADD or ADHD and we’ve got to be really aware of it. Again, Partnership for a Drug-Free America stated in the report last year that abuse of pills by teenagers was greater than the combination of cocaine, methamphetamines, and ecstasy all put together. So we need to be aware of these in this space.”

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Drug Counselor Video Transcription:

“When we think about inhalant abuse, we’re really looking at some of the more common household products contained in solvents and aerosols. Things like bathroom deodorizer, nail polish, gasoline that people use on their lawnmowers in the garage. Some people have reported to us using the canisters of whipping cream. These are extremely dangerous products but easily accessible.

Some common signs and symptoms of people who are abusing inhalants are extreme lethargy – they are really, really, really tired – dizziness. I think you want to be aware of the smells on the young people’s clothes, maybe discarded canisters; for example, in or the amount or supply of Dust-Off, the duster that’s used on computer keyboards; White-Out containers, nail polish, or these sorts of things.

It’s unfortunate but right now, according the National Institute on Drug Abuse, nearly 14.9% of all eight graders across the country have attempted to use inhalants. For obvious reasons, the use of inhalants delivers a quick high immediately. So again, we want to be aware of common household products.”

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Drug Counselor Video Transcription:

“The question is, can huffing cause prolonged seizures in a teen even after they have stopped using? The answer is, “Absolutely.” Huffing is extremely dangerous and it can cause brain damage and lung damage and heart problems. Huffing is responsible for more than thousands of deaths in the United States annually. You need to seek medical attention with a doctor who specializes in treating seizures. Huffing is one of the most popular ways that inhalants are abused. After dipping or soaking the rag into household cleaners or industrial chemicals, the user holds it over their nose and mouth to inhale fumes in order to achieve a high. When huffed, household chemicals like paint, solvents, glues or gasoline, they turn lethal, causing incredible damage to the body and to the brain.

There’s a whole host of short term and long term physical effects of huffing. Once serious and fatal, short term physical effect of huffing is known as sudden sniffing death syndrome, where inhaling of chemicals creates irregular heartbeats and a near instant cardiac arrest. Beyond fatalities, there are other short term physical effects of huffing that can be equally dangerous. Temporary physical effects include things like headaches, weak muscles, sharp abdominal pain, confusion, nausea, to list a few. The senses also become affected by huffing as well, leading to things like hearing loss, vision problems and even numbness and tingling in hands and feet, spasm, and you can have problems with mobility.

Overtime the physical effects of huffing take a long term toll as well. Inhalant dependent individuals can experience severe weight loss, muscle atrophy or weaknesses. Vital organs also become some of the hardest hit parts of the body as huffing causes irreparable damage to the heart, to kidneys, to the lungs, to the liver. Huffing also leads to severe brain damage resulting in lower cognitive ability, memory loss, slurred speech, and even personality changes. As time and tolerance build, huffing can cause dependency including withdrawal symptoms, when you use, the decline or stops, some of these symptoms can continue and leading to things like gram loss seizures. So if your teenager has been huffing, has been using inhalants for a period of time, there is also the chance that those users can continue beyond when they stop using. So what you need to do is need to seek medical attention for your teen that’s still experiencing those seizures even though they are not currently using.”

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Can huffing cause prolonged seizures in a teen even after they have stopped?

Drug Counselor Video Transcription:

“The question is, can huffing cause prolonged seizures in a teen even after they have stopped using? The answer is, “Absolutely.” Huffing is extremely dangerous and it can cause brain damage and lung damage and heart problems. Huffing is responsible for more than thousands of deaths in the United States annually. You need to seek medical attention with a doctor who specializes in treating seizures. Huffing is one of the most popular ways that inhalants are abused. After dipping or soaking the rag into household cleaners or industrial chemicals, the user holds it over their nose and mouth to inhale fumes in order to achieve a high. When huffed, household chemicals like paint, solvents, glues or gasoline, they turn lethal, causing incredible damage to the body and to the brain.

There’s a whole host of short term and long term physical effects of huffing. Once serious and fatal, short term physical effect of huffing is known as sudden sniffing death syndrome, where inhaling of chemicals creates irregular heartbeats and a near instant cardiac arrest. Beyond fatalities, there are other short term physical effects of huffing that can be equally dangerous. Temporary physical effects include things like headaches, weak muscles, sharp abdominal pain, confusion, nausea, to list a few. The senses also become affected by huffing as well, leading to things like hearing loss, vision problems and even numbness and tingling in hands and feet, spasm, and you can have problems with mobility.

Overtime the physical effects of huffing take a long term toll as well. Inhalant dependent individuals can experience severe weight loss, muscle atrophy or weaknesses. Vital organs also become some of the hardest hit parts of the body as huffing causes irreparable damage to the heart, to kidneys, to the lungs, to the liver. Huffing also leads to severe brain damage resulting in lower cognitive ability, memory loss, slurred speech, and even personality changes. As time and tolerance build, huffing can cause dependency including withdrawal symptoms, when you use, the decline or stops, some of these symptoms can continue and leading to things like gram loss seizures. So if your teenager has been huffing, has been using inhalants for a period of time, there is also the chance that those users can continue beyond when they stop using. So what you need to do is need to seek medical attention for your teen that’s still experiencing those seizures even though they are not currently using.”

Teen Affording Drug Use

Finding Means To Support Drug Use

Managing To Afford Constant Drug Use

Maintaining Financial Stability To Use For Continued Drug Use

Sparing Enough Money For Their Drug Habbits

Teens Sustaining Enough Money To Support Drug Habits

Having Enough Money To Fund Their Drug Use

Finding Financial Outlets To Support Drug Habit

Drug Abuse And Affording To Support Their Habit

Teens Finding Ways To Finance Their Drug Use

Young Adults Paying To Support His Drug Use

Managing Funds To Maintain His Steady Drug Habits

Teens Finding Financial Options To Sustain Drug Use

Young Adults Getting Creative To Support His Drug Habbits

Financing Drug Habits

This series of videos tackles the question of how teens and adolescents can afford to support their drug use. As the interviews show, teens don’t always need money to keep up their drug habit. Some got drugs from their friends, while others stole cash from their parents or siblings and used the money to buy drugs. As the drug addiction took hold, some teens stooped even lower, swiping cough medicine from pharmacies and even dealing drugs in exchange for some of the merchandise.

Even though teens and adolescents don’t typically have a steady income, they will find a way to acquire drugs, even if that means risking their health or safety, or the financial wellbeing of their family. As one former victim of substance abuse put it, “I had no morals at all—I just did whatever I needed to do to get high.”

Symptoms Of Drug Use

Signs and Symptoms Of Drug Use

Signs To Look For Concerning Drug Abuse

Indications Of Teen Drug Use

Hints Pointing Towards Teen Drug Abuse

Indicators Toward Teen Drug Usage

Warning Signs Of Teen Drug Abuse

This video series focuses on signs of drug use via accounts of recovered teen substance abusers and concerned parents. Some warning signs mentioned: if you son or daughter becomes more irritable and does not want to talk to you, violent mood swings, obsessive or excessive behavior, hiding away in their room more often, staying out all night or spending most of their time at friends’ houses, drastic changes in their eating or sleeping habits, trouble in school, or skipping school.

And while some of these may seem like normal behavior for a teenager, it is important that parents do not simply shrug it off and ignore it. Parents “really have to observe their kids,” said the subject of one interview. “They should know what their kid is normally like, and they’ll see a big change (if they are using drugs.)” Or, as another person put it, “I think the most important thing that they could have done would have been to just monitor my situation.”

For any parents who are concerned about their children’s possible drug habits, these videos on signs of drug use should be considered essential viewing.

Thoughts On Drug Trends

Views On Current Drug Fads

Awareness Of Popular Drug Tendencies

Perception Of Current Drug Movements

In this collection of videos, recovered teen drug addicts talk about the current trends in teen drug use. One substance mentioned repeatedly: Heroin. Its use among teenagers has skyrocketed over the past decade, particularly in suburbia, where the drug is cheap and readily available, which makes it especially appealing to teens. In one interview, a girl said that often, teens would be using heroin without even realizing that many of the people around them had starting using the drug as well.

Other interviewees mentioned a rise in prescription drug abuse such as Xanax Abuse (a drug intended for use in the treatment of anxiety disorders) and Percocet Abuse, a commonly used painkiller. Xanax in particular has seen a boom in popularity over the past couple of years. In one video, a former user describes what it was like for her when she would take the drug: “It knocked you out…and it totally just made you act like you had no brain.”

As the subject of one of the videos says, it is important for parents to not try to be “friends” with their kids and let them use drugs or alcohol in the house, and be sure to watch out for these trends with your children.

Teen's Thoughts On Drug Testing

Teen Perspective On Drug Testing

Teen's Views On Drug Testing

Teen Experience With Drug Testing

Teen's Outlook On Drug Testing

In this video collection, recovered teen substance abusers discuss drug testing and, more specifically, the way they handled drug testing while they were using. If they were clean, the interview subjects say, they were happy to take the test, but in other circumstances they would go to great lengths to trick the tests into giving a false negative. As they mention in the videos, some drug tests—particularly the kind you might buy at your local drug store—are far easier to dupe than others, and there are a multitude of ways teens can manipulate and fake a negative test.

One girl describes how she would either pay someone to take the test for her, or on other occasions would flush out her body by taking niacin. Flushing out or “detoxing” your body seems to be a popular method of undermining the drug test, either by taking an easy-to-find masking agent or by simply drinking gallons and gallons of water in the days before the drug test. But as another interviewee mentions, these methods do not work as well on more sophisticated/ clinical drug testing, which can detect masking agents and over-hydration.

Message For Parents Dealing With Teen Drug Abuse Problems

Advice For Parents Helping Their Teen With Drug Use

Helpful Hints For Parents Who Are Dealing With Teen Drug Abuse Issues

Parting Words

Parting Words (2)

What should parents do if they suspect or determine their child is using drugs? Recovered teen substance abusers talk about the complexities of this extraordinarily difficult time for parents, and also offer advice on how to approach the various treatment options available to families upon realizing their children are taking drugs. The people featured in these videos draw upon real-world knowledge stemming from past experiences to shed some light on how to best handle these circumstances, as well as some of the struggles your child may face once they have overcome their addiction (for instance, one of the people being interviewed talks about how she has had difficulty finding a job because she has a drug-related felony conviction on her record.)

According to the interviews, it is important for families to develop a unique treatment plan for their child that stretches from the parents’ first addressing the drug use, to detox or a drug treatment center, to how to handle a smooth transition back into a drug-free life. All of the information contained in these videos should prove valuable to any family facing a battle with drug addiction.

Finding Approach For Getting Drug Treatment

Making A Plan Towards Getting Clean And Off Of Drugs

Steps Towards Recovery and Choosing Drug Rehab

Advice On Getting Clean and Finding Treatment

This video series features recovered teen drug addicts discussing the process of getting sober and is essential viewing for any family with a child suffering from substance abuse. The interviewees describe a variety of methods by which they received drug treatment—everything from rehab, to clinics, to a stint in jail—giving viewers a better idea of what it will take to help your son or daughter get clean and sober.

One of the individuals featured in the videos stresses the importance of parents taking control of the situation when their child is in trouble. Even though their son or daughter may think they know what is best for them, the parents must recognize their child is in no condition to determine an effective drug treatment plan.

As mentioned in the videos, a treatment plan is essential for any lasting recovery, and parents should take the time to come up with a unique, though-out plan for their child. Because although it may have been difficult at times, all of the people featured in the videos were able to overcome their addictions and get sober—an inspiring message for any family that is dealing with this very difficult challenge.