Browsing: drug abuse

Teenage drug abuse statistics and teen drug abuse facts have been tracked for more than 35 years. Multiple agencies are involved in collecting teen drug abuse statistics, but the primary source of teenage drug abuse statistics is provided by the Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey, annually conducted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). In the 2010 MTF survey, 46,348 students in 8^th, 10^th and 12^th grade participated across 386 private and public schools.¹

Drug abuse statistics and drug abuse facts are widely available but are thought to understate the problems of drug abuse as drug behaviors have to be reported by the users themselves. Drug abuse statistics are collected in surveys taken in high school and door-to-door in some neighborhoods. While these provide useful estimates, they are not thought to be the complete numbers.

Drug abuse programs are a comprehensive set of drug abuse treatments designed to work together for the best chance of drug addiction recovery. People often choose drug abuse programs because they have tried to quit on their own and failed. Other addicts choose drug abuse treatment programs because they wish to have an intensive or residential treatment where they spend most of the day at the drug abuse treatment center.

Most drug abusers think they can stop taking drugs without the help of formal drug abuse treatment, but unfortunately, without treatment for drug abuse, many of them fail. Because drug abuse develops over time, the user’s life and brain is altered before they attempt to quit drugs and this makes recovery more difficult. Formal treatment for drug abuse is important if a drug abuser is to succeed in recovery.

It’s not unusual for drug abusers to believe they can manage their increasing and intense desire to use increasing amounts of the desired drug. The fact is drug abuse can sneak up on people over time and many need professional help for drug abuse. Drug abuse help can be used to treat abuse of:

The cause of drug abuse is not fully known but likely include genetic predisposition, co-occurring conditions and environmental circumstances. Drug use and experimentation is common in pre-adolescents and adolescents, but only a small percentage of those users will go on to abuse drugs.

While many people use the terms drug abuse and addiction interchangeably, abuse and addiction have separate and distinct meanings. One can abuse drugs without necessarily being addicted to drugs. The drug abuse definition centers more around the way a person uses drugs, while the drug addiction definition includes the use of drugs and also the psychological and physiological effects the drug has on the body.

“What is drug abuse?” is an important question for any loved one of a person with a possible substance use problem. Drug abuse information clearly states drug abuse is an extreme desire to obtain, and use, increasing amounts of one or more substances. Drug abuse is a generic term for the abuse of any drug, including alcohol and cigarettes.