Young Men Abusing Substances
We have worked with thousands of young men who would be labeled an “addict” without hesitation because of their significant substance abuse. We see more than just a label – we see a young man attempting to avoid or relieve some sort of hurt he has experienced. Though a misguided response to struggle, being high on a substance may be the only moment they feel relief from immense anxiety, depression, hurt, or trauma they have experienced. Our job at Capstone is to get to the core of this behavior and make sense of the question “What relief are you trying to find by using these substances?” Our therapy team is trained to find answers to these difficult questions and help your son begin to connect the dots from his hurts to his abuse of substances. We won’t just label your son as an addict, we will hear his story and help him on the path to healing. It’s part of what makes us one of the top drug addiction treatment centers.
Common Misconceptions about Substance Abuse & Recovery
– “Just because I use substances everyday doesn’t mean I’m dependent on them.”
– Only “hard drugs” like cocaine and meth are addictive.
– Rehabilitation doesn’t work.
– People who abuse prescription drugs are different from people who abuse illegal substances.
– Addiction treatment is one size fits all.
“Is it really that bad?”
We often hear teenage boys and young adult males share with us that vaping or smoking marijuana is “not as bad as what they could be doing”. The popularity of cannabis use does not diminish the risks of it. Negative and long-term affects of marijuana use impacts brain health, mental health, athletic performance, and daily life. According to SAMHSA, “Today’s marijuana has more than 3 times the concentration of THC than marijuana from 25 years ago. More THC – the mind-altering chemical in marijuana – may lead to an increase in dependency and addiction”. E-cigarettes are no exception. There is a misconception that e-cigarettes aren’t harmful to the body. In the context of addiction, vaping is no different from any other substance – it is a chemical that is harmful to the body. “Electronic cigarettes are just as addictive as traditional ones”, a John Hopkins study states. There is no “healthy way” to utilize e-cigarettes, or any other substance for that matter. Transitioning from one substance to another prolongs the process of rehabilitation.
Switch Addiction
Sometimes substances like e-cigarettes, marijuana, or even regular cigarettes are introduced to parents as a way for your son to “step-down” to something less harmful than what is traditionally seen as more harmful substances (methamphetamine, cocaine, heroine, etc.). What this is describing is switching from one substance to another. In many cases, what is intended to be an alternative substance can morph into multiple addictions (Gateway Foundation). This extends beyond substance abuse (i.e. work addiction, shopping addiction, food addiction, etc.).
Addictions are categorized into two different categories: chemical and process, or behavioral. Chemical addictions involve the abuse of drugs and/or alcohol. Process Addictions are behaviors that cause the same flooding of the receptor sites in the brain as substances do – unhealthy food consumption or the lack of consumption, pornography, sexual acting out or high-risk sex, compulsive video-gaming, gambling, etc. Brains don’t care which avenue is used to get the flooding because by the time the experience gets to the brain, it is all about the activation of the receptor sites. These behaviors are as powerful as chemicals and, therefore, just as addictive. That’s why Capstone Treatment Center is more than a drug addiction treatment center.
How Does Capstone View Addiction?
Capstone is so much more than a drug addiction treatment center. We work with a wide range of young men with addictive tendencies, addictions in the making, and full-blown addictions. As a part of the addiction treatment industry, we at Capstone recognize addiction as an irreversible condition of the brain that will always have the potential to be active again, even after years of abstinence. That is to say, if you truly have an addiction, you have it. Period. As though a switch has been flipped in your neurobiology that can never be switched off and can only be addressed as a chronic condition.
On the other hand, the term addiction is frequently used by the general public to describe any self-destructive behavior done to the point of absurdity. So people may say a person is addicted to pot, cocaine, alcohol, porn, sex, food, gambling, video-gaming, etc., most often meaning that he or she is out of control with a behavior that is self-destructive, leading to a continual and insatiable appetite to keep doing it, no matter the consequences.
This is probably the most common use of the term addiction, but it is a mistake to think it always matches the addiction field’s definition in the previous paragraph. When it’s used this way, this clinical definition of addiction is more likely to be accurate and applicable when dealing with fully matured adults. But it can often be inaccurate and misleading when addressing the needs of young adults and adolescents. As people continue their escalation in abusive-compulsive-addictive behaviors, they can come to a point where they cross an invisible line from abuse to dependency to compulsion, and ultimately to what is formally defined as addiction. But this line is fluid, and there is no test to determine if it has been crossed. It is a process, not an event.
At Capstone, we focus on so much more than just the addiction or addictive behavior itself. Ideally, treatment will not simply “treat” the compulsive/addictive behavior in isolation, because to do so will have limited impact. Any gains achieved will be short-lived if the other systems in life are not addressed. Learn more about our drug addiction treatment center and our team of therapists here.