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Substance Abuse In Emerging Adulthood

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There are several temptations thrown at an adolescent’s way during the time the adolescent transitions to adulthood. As young adults are more exposed to recreational drugs during their “Emerging Adulthood” years, it is evident that they are at higher risk of substance abuse. Emerging Adulthood is the phase when adolescents transition to adulthood. This is roughly between the ages of 18-25 years old. During this period of time, people tend to explore themselves more and frequently change as a person. As many students begin college, they gain more independence. Because of the lack of parents around, a different environment, and the exposure to different people, they are more exposed to recreational drugs. It is important to understand how drug …show more content…

Through drug abuse, families are torn apart. According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, the family structure changes when a family member is abusing substances. (National Center for Biotechnology Information, n.d.). This study focused on the relationship between a substance abuser with his or her family. According to Reilly, families face a clear pattern when drug usage is involved: negativism, parental inconsistency, parental denial, miscarried expression of anger, self‐medication, and unrealistic parental expectations (Reilly, 1992). Negativism involves pessimistic attitudes towards family members. Secondly, parental inconsistency happens when a parent and/or child is abusing drugs. Parental inconsistency displays insufficient boundaries or rules within a household, thus children act out of hand. The third pattern is parental denial where the parent denies the fact that there’s a problem. Miscarried expression of anger results in a parent or child using more drugs in order to cope with their anger, rather than expressing their feelings at home. Similar to miscarried expression of anger, self-medication is way to cope with abuse. Lastly, unrealistic parental expectations cause children to act a certain way. For example, no matter what the child does, it is never good enough in the eyes of their parents. Another example is a child becoming the …show more content…

This physical development domain focuses on those that do drugs having a higher risk in health-risking sexual behavior (HRSB) with diseases such as HIV/AIDS, since it is known that two-thirds of people who get HIV/AIDS are 25 years old or younger (Hops et la., 2011). The research first tested the repercussions drug abuse had on impulsivity. As a result, drug abuse played a huge role on impulsivity, followed by the high risk of risky sexual behavior (Baron and Kenny, 1986). The use of drugs can cause the user to have wrong judgement which causes risky behavior, exactly why impulsivity or acting out on a whim is a significant role when using drugs. Overall, substance abuse has an impact on all four development domains. For cognitive development, it can affect and impair a person’s cognitive skills. Secondly, it can cause depression in the emotional development domain. For the social development domain, it can lead to a bad relationship with the people the consumer is surrounded by. Lastly, for physiological development, it can cause health problems such as HIV/AIDS. As we can see by the four different development domains, the abuse of substances has several negative outcomes and can be severely detrimental to the abuser. Although it is difficult to stop the abuse of substances, people who are dealing with this issue should seek help. Relying on drugs is

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Another target for this can be the younger generation due to the fact of peer pressure relations. As kids who are still trying to develop the whole notion of fitting in, it is a job that we must educate them first on the consequences if they were to make wrong decisions. To debunk the stereotypes, “Peer counseling program are also present in some schools. In these programs, students talk about mutual problems and receive support and perhaps learn coping skills from peers who have been trained in this intervention activity to not use drugs” (McKenzie 2012). Without maximizing the efforts of our younger kids who are prone to use more substances, commit crimes, develop mental illnesses, we need to start at a base where we are able to talk with them rather than tell them x, y,

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