A model of psychological dependence in adolescent substance abusers

Adolescent substance abuse appears to have its foundations in a distortion of perceived events at an age prior to involvement with substances. Substances are used as a compromise in an attempt to establish a lifestyle which has meaning to the individual. Because the individual's involvement with a substance has taken place during the crucial developmental phase of adolescence, and because the use of drugs alters one's perception of one's social, emotional and cognitive state, any experience during this time must, by necessity, be distorted. At the same time, other experiences, necessary for natural development into adulthood, are forsaken . Thus, certain learned skills are replaced by those learned whilst under the influence of substances or as a reaction to the substance abusing lifestyle. The latter two often being inappropriate in drug-free situations. As the abuse of substances severely hampers the individual's natural development, a model of Developmental Habilitation is the essence of change.