Adolescent's Alcohol Abuse

R500 has gone missing from Mrs Johnson's purse. Surely it couldn't have been her lovely 14-year-old daughter? She was the only one home at the time. What could she want the money for? Mrs Johnson's about to find out.

Parents are seldom drug experts. But they should be. Almost three-quarters of the clients of the Cape Town Drug Counselling Centre started taking drugs in their teens. Many parents might have a drug addict in their home. In fact, they may be funding their kids' addiction.

Why teens take drugs

Drugs make you feel on top of the world. Grownup. In with the crowd. Cool. Hung over. Special. Underperforming. Confident. Like a rebel. In short, it does different things for different people. But seen from a teen's perspective, drugs can appear to have more advantages than disadvantages. Otherwise kids wouldn't be doing drugs.

"Despite what most people think, most kids don't start off taking drugs, because they want to get high - they are motivated by a variety of psychological factors rather than physical ones. They want to have fun, have friends and have the status of being a risk-taker. The danger is part of the appeal," says Grant Jardine, director of the Cape Town Drug Counselling Centre.

Among the many reasons for young people taking drugs, are:

Stress relief

To forget or escape problems

Being a rebel and a risk-taker

Relief of boredom/wanting to have fun

Escaping difficult decisions

A feeling of being special

Being part of a significant group of people

Being addicted

Curiosity

And a rehab programme that does not take these reasons for taking drugs into account, is bound to fail. People need to be taught new strategies to achieve these things, according to Jardine.

What's particularly worrying is that drug trends in South Africa are changing for the worse:

More teens are trying drugs than before;

The age at which