Quality Young Adult Drug Treatment
Between the age of eighteen and twenty-five, young adults are still dealing with changes in psychological and physical characteristics. They are developing a sense of self, maturity, and knowledge of their surrounding world. When an adolescent chooses to use alcohol or drugs there still can be some ignorance about the possible ramifications, in the young adult years this is not quite the case. The sense of self, maturity, and knowledge of the surrounding world slows and sometimes evens become dormant for a period of time during and after drug use. Young adults struggling with addiction comprise a significant amount of that special population. Most often, these individuals come from an unstable home and there is frequently a history of mental illness in the family. All of these factors must be taken into account when creating a drug treatment plan for a substance dependence disorder.
Treating young adults presents many different challenges that are always common with adult treatment. Counselors must remember that young adults are continually developing psychologically and they have not reached the level of understanding their feelings and emotions in the way that adults are capable of. The most important thing that occurs in young adult drug treatment is the change in perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors that revolve around addictive chemicals. The young adults must come to understand and recognize that they have a problem and develop tools of recovery. Unlike adults in treatment, young adults must focus on understanding their identity and who they are as well as building life skills and emotional regulation.
Some of the most difficult aspects of treating young adults are helping them understand they have a problem, getting them to communicate, and making them comply with the rules. One of the most successful treatment approaches is the therapeutic community. Clients hold their peers at high level of accountability giving the treatment team leverage, providing for faster behavior modification. The TC model teaches the client self-discipline and how to delay gratification. Love, support and trust are crucial parts of helping the client grow. Once they feel genuine love from the drug treatment team, the young adult will start to take a look at themselves and work towards sobriety.