It is sad that many are not aware that there are different treatment options. For anxiety, there is the panic away program. Your site will indeed help a lot of people that concerns about ADHD

That said, those non-AD/HD teens are being supplied with stimulants, most likely by their AD/HD friends.

10, 15 years ago, this issue was shouted down by the AD/HD community every time this problem was raised by the media. Your response was honest and well stated, but ultimately had the same result. No one wants to talk about teen alcohol and drug abuse.

My question to you is “Are the national and community-based AD/HD organizations speaking to this issue now? And are they providing parents guidance on how to appropriately monitor their AD/HD teen’s stimulant medication to prevent redistribution of these medications to our non-AD/HD teens?

I cannot begin to tell you how frustrated I am with teen alcohol and drug abuse, and the parents who ignorantly contribute to the problem in one way or another. One example is not properly monitoring their AD/HD teen’s stimulant medication.

But there are other problems too. For almost a year now, a number of us have joined together to support a single mother who is trying to get her 16 year old son to stop smoking, and stop using alcohol, marijuana, and hallucigens. He was failing academically (though thanks to our school district’s alternative high school, he’s making some progress). He has been in juvenile detention off and on all summer for “dirty” UA’s and curfew violations. I believe the judge who keeps putting him in detention and who doubles his time in detention each time, may very well have saved this teen’s life. He has a lot of time to think while in there, and it also gives his mother adequate access to him once a day as they continue to dialogue about the choices her teenage son is making.

How else are parents contributing to the problem? By allowing this teen to stay in their home for one, two, three days at a time without talking with the teen’s mother – (as a result, the mother can’t find him). These parents wrongly believe that the teen is being mistreated by his mother who is simply trying to keep him in school and off alcohol and drugs. Some of these parents even go as far as telling this teen that drugs should be decriminalized and that he is a victim of the judicial system. They forget that the adolescent brain is still growing and developing and that we have a responsibility to protect the adolescents the potentially damaging effects of alcohol and recreational drug use. These teenagers are not adults, and should not be treated as if they’re adults.

But it’s not just the parents who are contributing to the problem.

Eventhough this teen has been in and out of the mental health system throughout his life, not one mental health care professional identified his AD/HD or anxiety disorder. After three years of academic struggle, he began using alcohol and drugs. I hate to say it, but this was a good thing in the sense that there is a lot of funding for recovery counseling and programs.

As a result of his alcohol and drug abuse, he has finally been diagnosed, but, guess what, now that he has a history of alcohol and drug use, it is going to be an uphill battle to get him appropriately treated with stimulant medication.

He needs the stimulant medication to “get” what he desperately needs to learn in his recovery counseling and outpatient groups and programs, but because he’s still using periodically as evidenced by the required UA’s, I don’t know if and when we are going to be able to get him appropriately treated for his AD/HD.

Despite more than 20 years of research-based treatments, educational accomodations, and skills programs for AD/HD children and teens, we are still failing them, particularly the undiagnosed and untreated AD/HD teens who understandably lose hope, disconnect from their schools and families, and, more often than not, fall victim to the down ward spiral of alcohol and drug abuse, which leads to stealing, which leads to incarceration, etc.

And I have to say, sadly, a lot of these teens have good hearts but they no longer believe they have choices and there days and nights are driven by the need to find the next high.

Talk about stuck.

Here’s my final point.

I am tired of the divide that exists between AD/HD treatment professionals and chemical dependency counselors. Members of your professions pay lip service to one another but you’re not joining into a meaningful dialog with one another about this critical, dual diagnosis issue. And as a result, we’re losing some good AD/HD teens to drug abuse, and ultimately expensive social service programs and/or incarcerations.

Stop beating up the media for attempting to bring attention to the issue of teen alcohol and drug abuse. Like it or not, the AD/HD community needs to acknowledge teen alcohol and drug abuse and begin taking steps to curtail the redistribution by teens of these theraputic, stimulant medications for recreational use.

One was an AD/HD adult who was an alcoholic. He had been under the care of a psychiatrist who specialized in AD/HD for three years. It’s unusual for a doctor to prescibe stimulant medication to a patient who is abusing drugs or alcohol. It’s possible the psychiatrist didn’t know. I can’t remember if I asked the family. Unfortunately, the AD/HD adult would periodically abuse his Ritalin by shooting it up. Not sure if that’s the right term. On the day of his death, he abused his Ritalin. I believe he had also been drinking. His mother found him, still breathing but unconsious in his bedroom. She immediately called 911. Her husband, a Paramedic, was one of the responders. They were unable to revive him. I believe he was 29 or 39 years old.

The other was a 16 year old boy. My husband and I knew the parents. Nice family, nice boy. The young man and a number of his friends were hanging out one night. Someone gave him some Ritalin. Sometime later that evening, he collapsed and died. I’ve often wondered how the person who gave him the Ritalin coped. Initially, it was reported that he died of a Ritalin overdose. In talking with the coroner, I learned that the coroner’s conclusion had been premature. In part because the young man was so dehydrated at the time of his death, it was difficult to extract enough fluid to determine how much Ritalin he had ingested. A month or so later, it was reported that his death was most likely due to a undiagnosed heart condition.

I stopped taking stimulants for my AD/HD ten years ago. It was a mistake.

During that period, I gained an additional 25 pounds, probably due to stress eating. Six years ago, I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes. And just recently, I have been diagnosed with diabetes II.

A month ago, I began taking stimulant medication again with the hope that it would bring my stress levels down. It did. I’m losing weight (though not due to the stimulant, the side effect, “loss of appetite”, only lasted a week or so).

I’m focused, more relaxed, less moody, and my energy level has gone from lethargic to normal. My hope is that the medication will help me to stay focused on eating properly and exercising so I can lose 50 pounds over the next year. In a months time, I’ve lost 5 pounds. I feel hopeful.

Stimulant medication can do great harm or great good. The problem is not the medication, it’s the people who chose to share it or abuse it, the families who do not report abuse to the patient’s doctor, and perhaps, in some cases, the doctors who sometimes do not properly diagnose, or ask the right questions, or monitor the patient’s other life circumstances in addition to his or her responses to treatment.

As an advocate on behalf of AD/HD adults for almost 20 years, I can say with confidence that while stimulant abuse does happen, it’s rarely by properly diagnosed and treated AD/HD adults. Rather, most struggle to remember to take their medication.

AD/HD adolescents, however, often do not fully grasp the legal consequences and dangers of sharing their medication, particularly if they haven’t bought into the benefits of taking it. I have not heard any stories of AD/HD adolescents abusing their stimulant medication in our community, though it’s possible that it could happen, I suppose. On the other hand, I do know of AD/HD adolescents using other, non-stimulant drugs recreationally. And these teens, as mentioned in an earlier post, typically are non-compliant in taking their stimulant medication.

AD/HD is real. AD/HD treatments change lives for the better more often than not. Sadly, there will always be people who abuse drugs. But again, in my experience, it is rare for an AD/HD adolescent or adult to abuse stimulants.