Adolescent Substance Abuse: Evidence-Based Approaches to Prevention and Treatment

Substance abuse is, and has always been, an indisputable fact of life. People-especially young people-abuse various legal and illegal substances for any number of reasons: to intensify feelings, to achieve deeper consciousness, to escape reality, to self-medicate. And as substance-abusing teenagers mature, they pose particular challenges to the professionals charged with keeping them clean and sober and helping them maintain recovery into adulthood.