Better Ways To Help Teens Struggling With Addiction

I can't ask them to stop using unless we help reduce the symptoms. It's not fair. They begin to suffer then. And so the

goal would be to get the medication that will help, to give them coping skills that will help so that when we take away the addiction, they feel okay. They feel better. You don't want somebody to feel worse when you take away symptoms. The

whole idea that because they have a lack of will, they're not stopping. That they could choose to stop is part of the dilemma in the addiction treatment system, it does become if you don't stop, I won't treat you. I don't like that very much because we are a private practice. I will see someone whether

they're using or not. I'm not going to say, "Oh, no, you have to stop using before you come in to see me." No, they can come in anytime. The other programs

insist that you stop. It's like me telling someone who's depressed, you have to stop being depressed before you come to see me. Yeah. For depression.

So, it doesn't make much sense to me. And that's why we have this private practice where we are more flexible taking a psychological point of view instead of a strict no use point of view. I don't think it's fair to the patient and I don't think it works and it prevents people from coming into treatment. They're usually using

whether it's marijuana or cocaine or alcohol or opiates or methamphetamines. They're usually using sometimes I do get people out of rehab, but normally I start seeing them in outpatient treatment. I start asking them, "So, what would you like to do? Would you

like to stop? I mean, is this something that is your goal as well?" Because so many people come in feeling resentful that somebody's pressuring them, especially young people, pressuring them to come in or they're going to lose their relationship if it's an adult or the kids getting kicked out of college or high school or whatever. They're

feeling pressure to stop and I want to engage them in how do you help yourself? Do do you think this is helping you? Do you think it's hurting you? They're

usually upset with the people around them who are being negative. It's usually a lot of negativity and I say, "I will help with that. It's okay. I

I'll help. I'll help them understand how to how to help you." Because a lot of time people, excuse me, are so desperate to help their loved one that they start taking actions that actually kind of interfere with their loved one, whether it's a child or a partner to uh engage in treatment. And instead of being

supportive and kind and saying, "I understand that there are many reasons for use and it's been going on for a long time and how do I help support you in your own recovery?" It needs to be a supportive environment. You have to be careful how much pressure you put on someone to think about why they're addicted because you can increase the addiction if you pressure them too much.

If you create too much stress, it'll make it hard for them to give it up. somebody's using opioids because they're angry. If I say, "Well, what are you angry about?" I'm increasing their

anger. Okay? And that's not helpful.

What I want to do first is I treat both the emotional disorder and the addiction disorder simultaneously. I don't think there's one in front of the other. I think we need to do both. So, I want

them to see a psychiatrist to see if there's a bipolar disorder or a depressive disorder. And then we need to work on how do we reduce the opiates at the same time. So I don't choose one over the other. I just want to pace

myself with them. You have to be careful how many steps you take to help someone stop using because if you put too much stress on them, they will relapse. They don't have the coping skills to cope with the emotion that they're experiencing. That's why they're using

is because they don't know how to cope with it. I need to make sure that we work on how to be assertive, how to think differently. How do you change your thoughts with cognitive behavioral therapy? How do you change your thoughts

so that you can be less angry so that you don't need the opioids in order to stop being so angry? It's kind of approaching it from both an emotional perspective, a thinking perspective. So there's psychonamic treatment, there's cognitive behavioral treatment, and then there's the addiction treatment. And

they all need to come together depending on what the person is able to do at that moment which is which I use my clinical judgment to decide what they're ready to