Teens Abusing Depressants

Teens usually abuse depressants to experience euphoria. Depressants are also used with other drugs to add to the other drugs' high or to deal with their side effects. Teen abusers take higher doses than people taking the drugs under a doctor's supervision for therapeutic purposes.

When a teen abuses depressants their mental functioning and judgment are impaired causing confusion and amnesia. Therefore, teens abusing depressants will have no recollection or events that occurred while under the influence. So, many times you will see the misuse of depressants to facilitate sexual assault. Also, abuse of depressants reduces the teen's reaction time.

Teens can rapidly develop dependence on and tolerance to depressants, meaning you need more and more of them to feel and function normally. This makes them unsafe, increasing the likelihood of coma or death.

As the abuse of depressants can relax the muscles, unwanted physical effects may occur, such as: slurred speech, lack of coordination, weakness, headache, lightheadedness, blurred vision, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, low blood pressure, and slowed breathing. Unlike barbiturates, large doses of benzodiazepines are rarely fatal unless combined with other drugs or alcohol. But unlike the withdrawal syndrome seen with most other drugs of abuse, withdrawal from depressants can be life threatening.

High doses of depressants or use of them with alcohol or other drugs can slow heart rate and breathing enough to cause death.

Common Depressants: Valium®, Halcion®, Ativan®, Klonopin®, Restoril® and Rohypnol®

Depressants Street Names: Barbs, Benzos, Downers, Georgia Home Boy, GHB, Grievous Bodily Harm, Liquid X, Nerve Pills, Phennies, R2, Reds, Roofies, Rophies, Tranks, Yellows

In the early stages of drug use/abuse it is difficult to separate typical adolescent behavior from chemically induced behavior. Some teens may not show obvious symptoms even in more advanced stages, and the parent may only sense something is wrong. Most teens, however, will exhibit many of the signs above, which can develop over a period of a few months or years. If you sense something is not right with your teen, we recommend that you take action to prevent a tragic outcome. Teen addiction and behavioral problems can be so severe that they can only be properly addressed with professional help in a controlled environment, such as our Teen Residential Addiction Treatment Center and Specialty School/Academy.

Reach out to us. Recovery from addiction is just a click or a phone call away. If the information you are looking for is not found here and you need immediate attention you may contact us:

Teen Addiction Help: 1-888-757-6237
http://www.inspirationsteenrehab.com/

http://www.inspirationsyouth.com/

Addiction Treatment for Young Adults and Adults : 1-888-387-6237 http://www.covecenterforrecovery.com/