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Impact of Alcohol and drugs on Adolescents Life

By: Muhammad Ilyas

"O you who believe, intoxicants, and gambling, and the altars of idols, and the games of chance are abominations of the devil; you shall avoid them that you may succeed" Al-Quran, 5:90.

In Islam there is no compromise whatsoever regarding illicit drugs and alcoholic beverages; they are called "abominations and the work of Satan". Yet from the beginning of the human history, they are being involved in one way or other using alcohol and drugs for recreational and treatment purposes. With the advancements in field of medicine, a number of medicine and drugs are produced for different therapeutic purposes but use of some drug is illicit. Some of them are life saving while some has life threatening affects if overdosed. Alcohol and drugs abuse is a growing problem in our country. It is prevalent in all age group, but adolescent are the high risk group. It strikes the adolescent with great magnitude because they accept it as a negative coping mechanism. A study was conducted by Azad Foundation (2006), working for street children, on 1151 children from different cities of Pakistan. They concluded that out of this number 56% were using Hashih, 2% ID, 55.3% solvent drugs and 85% inhalants. The world health report, (2002) indicated that 8.9 % of the total burden of diseases comes from the use of psychoactive substances. The report showed that tobacco accounted for 4.1 %, alcohol 4 % and illicit drugs 0.8% of the burden of diseases in 2000. It shows that alcohol and drugs use have strengthened their routes in our society in different forms. Addiction and dependence to drugs and alcohol is influenced by variety of factors. Their use cause serious physiological, psychological and psychosocial problems, which could be controlled by using different strategies and using a multidimensional approaches.

Addiction is the term used in everyday life. Addiction is defined as a behavioral syndrome where drug procurement and use seem to dominate the individual‘s motivation and where constraints on the behavior are largely ineffective (Addiction Science Network, 2007). In contrast, dependence is a pathological state in which after a certain period one had to use an added quantity of a substance to achieve the desired effect. Excessive use of such drugs produces irresponsible attitudes (Touheed, 2007), while their persistent use lead to drug dependence. Thus we can say that addiction is bridge to dependence.

Alcohol and drugs are found in different forms in our society. Apart from alcohol, opium, hashish, heroin, codeine, cannabis/marijuana are most popular psychoactive drugs used in Pakistan. Beside these, anabolic steroids, cocaine, hallucinogens, narcotics, depressants, inhalants, opiates or opiate derivative, amphetamines, stimulants and over the counter drugs are more frequently used for recreational purposes. All such drugs are commonly psychoactive in nature. Their use sometimes produces serious psychological and physiological symptoms, if over dosed, taken with out prescription or if stopped abruptly.

Many factors are responsible for infuriating the use of alcohol and drugs in our society. Adolescence uses them for many reasons. Experimentation with alcohol and drugs during adolescence is common. They don’t understand the link between their actions today and the consequences tomorrow. They use it because of their curiosity, to reduce stress and to feel grown up. Other may use it because they are depressed, have low self esteem, had a failure in school, have no close friends, has criminal behavior; such as stealing or violence, has frequent physical complaints, such as headaches or stomachaches and has suicidal thoughts or behaviors. Moreover guilt, anxiety, confusion, anger and embarrassment aggravate the use of alcohol and drugs in young age. In addition, unemployment, a bleak future, inflation, rampant violence, consumerism and lack of recreational activities seems to have acted as a catalyst in use of drug. In my opinion drug and alcohol related laws are not implemented properly in our country. I think police, political parties and government body prop up different gangsters groups involved in smuggling and marketing of drugs. In fact, three decades ago the concept of drug abuse was not that common in Pakistan but later on laws were changed by different governments since 1978 leading to uncontrolled cropping, shipping and marketing of such things. The fact is that drug addiction rose to 5,000 users in 1980, to 70,000 in 1983, and in the words of Pakistan’s Narcotics Control Board, went completely out of hand, exploding to more than 1.3 million addicts in less than 3 years (Hussain, 2007). Now, the eye opening fact is that there are over four million drug addicts in Pakistan.

Alcohol and drugs uses affect the individual physical and physiological functions in various ways. Heroin is probably the most famous drug used in Pakistan. This acts fast because it crosses the blood brain barrier easily. Thus it causes euphoria, slows down respiration, impairs mental process and results in drowsiness, nausea, and contraction of pupils. After heroin, marijuana/cannabis (Charas) are the drugs of choice in adolescent especially in students who have to work for long hours and thus use it to feel relax. Marijuana causes increased heart rate, short term memory loss, psychosis and reduces concentration while cannabis can lead to schizophrenia and heightened states of unconsciousness. Use of Cocaine elevates blood pressure, body temperature, ulceration of mucous membranes of nose and can lead to cardiac and respiratory arrest. Moreover, combine influences of depressants, narcotics, hallucinogens, stimulants, inhalants, and over the counter drugs includes nausea, vomiting, calm and relaxed muscles, slurred speech, drowsiness, mood disorders, loss of appetite, sleeplessness, tremors, convulsions, loss of coordination, stroke, high blood pressure and loss of smell. These ultimately lead to brain damage, respiratory and cardiac arrest. Alcohol causes serious health affects. It affects the central nervous system and it circulates in the bloodstream to the brain in about 30 seconds. It causes high blood pressures, depresses immune system and causes other systematic diseases. Alcohol causes 1.8 million deaths (3.2% of total) and a loss of 58.3 million (4% of total) of Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALY), unintentional injuries account for about one third of the 1.8 million deaths, while neuro-psychiatric conditions account for close to 40% of the 58.3 million DALYs (WHO, 2002).

The physiological affects of drugs and alcohol lead to serious psychological and mental health problems. Adolescents are more prone to these complications because of their behaviors. Although, these drugs are taken for emotional support and to relieve stress but it lead to serious problems when the drug affects are diminished. These include stress, anxiety, depression, loss of concentration in studies and work, withdrawal symptoms, mood swings, frustration, resentment, embarrassment, anger, fear, loneliness, confusions, poor judgment, disorientation and delirium. The individuals suffer loss of interest and memory, irritability, feeling of guilty and shamefulness. They feel more mental and emotional stress which results in low self-esteem and low self-control that increases their susceptibility to excessive drinking and drugs use. Further, it results in cognitive impairment that lead to adverse affects on learning, memory, cognitive adaptability and planning abilities. Failure, neglect and with drawn form work are problem faced by drugs addicts. Such symptoms eventually end up in serious mental illness like obsessive-compulsive disorders, depressive illness, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and personality disorders. These sufferings are not only limited to the individual but it also distress the people surrounding them. The adolescents with addiction are the major psychological stress for their families because of their aggressive behaviors, suicidal thoughts and psychiatric disorders. Their families face difficulties for their loss of productivity and feel shameful for their children actions. The treatment cost and prognosis of addiction increases family stress. Moreover, use of drugs and alcohol in front of children greatly affect their psychological drives toward such actions. In addition, drugs and alcohol use by females in reproductive ages influence their reproductive life by affecting life of fetus, altering intrauterine environment and brings hormonal changes. It has an impact on sexual drives that affect marital relationships which cause stress for both partners as well as their children.

Social life of drugs and Alcohol is miserable. It influences individual, families and societies differently. Individual affects include isolation, rejection from the community, loss of interpersonal relationship, loss of work and productivity, respect and loss of self in society. Moreover, Kaminar & Bukstein, (1998) state that “Families with substance abuse have fewer friends and are less involved in recreational, social, religious, and cultural activities”. Addicted adolescents have less meaningful and emotional involvement with other. Further, they feel difficulty in coping with everyday realities and responsibilities. Hence, they feel difficulty in identifying and expressing positive behaviors. Despite theses, drugs and alcohol abuse in families’ is also associated with the increase in domestic violence. Societies with drugs abuse have higher rate of crimes, sexual abuse and other violent behaviors. I view drug and alcohol addiction as responsible factors in destruction of the societal structure of any society. It makes people life miserable and insecure. On the other hand excessive drugs consumption at work leads to accidents, absenteeism and lost of revenue. Drugs use also play a significant role in spread of sexually transmitted disease and increasing number of unwanted pregnancy because of teenage sexual activities. Thus, it increases the burden on society.

Many therapeutic actions have been developed to help adolescents with addiction. Those include some psychological principles, drug treatments, rehabilitation and policy making. I think, by applying psychological approach of “stages of change”, we can help addicted people and can decrease magnitude of this social evil. This includes five well defined stages that are pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action and maintenance (Prochaska et al., 1992). The implication of the change model is that people may require different interventions depending upon through which stage they are passing. Thus it can help us in directing and planning different action oriented programs. This process of change will provide the opportunity of self-motivation, self-liberation and self-evaluation. By utilizing this process people can be thought about self-control, self-monitoring, stimulus control, problem solving, decision making and actions, stress management, life style modification and relapse prevention. Drug treatment is another option for addicted people to rebuild their lives. According to National Institute on Drug Abuse(NIDA) the ultimate goal of drug addiction treatment is to enable an individual to achieve lasting abstinence, but the immediate goals are to reduce drug abuse, improve the patient's ability to function, and minimize the complications related to drug abuse. The drug treatment may be initiated for altering affects of drugs and treating underlying psychopathology. For the prevention of drugs and alcohol abuse it is important to control their availability through proper legislation, changing culture and context of their use through media, strengthen individual resilience by removing risk factors and harm minimizing by addicted peoples.

To conclude, alcohol and drugs are the major threats to young generation of our society because of the presence of high risk groups and various risk factors. Those factors influence the individual’s life physiologically and psychosocially that make them socially vulnerable. There is need to build up drugs and alcohol free culture through proper education of our communities. I think through collaborative work of local community, religious leaders, and professionals associations for doctors, nurses, social workers, lawyers and psychologist, media, NGOs, other international organizations and government this could be dreamed possible. Moreover, proper training of police, lawyers and others dealing with addicted peoples is necessary for the eradication of this evil from our society. Making working groups of young people, proper development and distribution of resources will help victims to rebuild their lives. Monitoring interventions and data collection is essential to determine the magnitude of the problem and to plan interventions accordingly.