Unexpected Consequences of Teen Drinking and Drug Use

It’s not difficult to find news stories circulating about suburban teens using drugs, alcohol and what have you. The latest such story from a wealthy suburb outside of Hartford, CT made me recall a recent conversation with a mom whose 28 year old son is struggling to make it on his own. We’ll call him Tom. He’s affable, kind, and bright, but he has yet to graduate from college after no less than five attempts. He’s not quite able to support himself, he seems emotionally and socially behind most of his peers, and he’s never had a mature loving relationship with a young woman. (No, he’s not gay.) These things worry his mom greatly, as she wants nothing more than for him to be the wonderful, mature man she believes he is capable of being. He is 27. It’s time.

What’s this got to do with the title of this piece? It happens he comes from a community much like the town mentioned in this article, which may be why it jumped out at me. Tom’s mom attributes his developmental delays and emotional problems to the alcohol and drugs he consumed during his high school years. She knew he was drinking (and more) at the time, and felt she was handling it correctly by allowing him and his friends to indulge in her basement – so they weren’t out driving. Looking back on it now, she wishes she had managed things very differently. Tom and his various therapists all feel that his delayed developmental state is due to his alcohol and drug use in high school.

Parents who worry about teens and risky behavior usually focus on the car accidents, the overdoses, and obvious life-threatening consequences of the abuse of drugs and alcohol. But sometimes the consequences are much more subtle and insidious. When teens use alcohol and drugs they are doing so at a critical time of development…and this can interfere with and even delay their normal development in very significant ways.

Koren Zailckas in her 2005 shocker Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood spoke about this eloquently:

“Nine years after I took my first drink, it occurs to me that I haven’t grown up. I am missing so much of the equipment that adults should have, like the ability to sustain eye contact without flinching or letting my gaze roll slantwise to the floor. …I should be able to stop self-censoring and smile when I feel like it. I should recognize happiness when I feel it expand in my gut…. Clinicians report some [of these] women, who seek treatment for alcoholism in their mid-to-late twenties, not only look younger but act younger too…it seems some women’s emotional development arrests as a result of alcohol. They stall at the age they were when they had their first drinks.” (Smashed, preface, xvii – xviii)

Adolescence is a time of critical development; essential developmental learning must take place on numerous fronts. Teens learn who they want to be, they learn what they value in themselves and others, they develop confidence and social skills…. but if they are experiencing most of their social outings through the cloudy haze of alcohol or drugs, they may fail to grow – and even fully feel -these essential experiences.

It’s another take on why just taking the keys away from the kids isn’t such a great strategy.

Food for thought.