Meth Use in Teenage Girls - Coursework Example

12 November, Meth use in teenage girls: Background: Teenagers, particularly in someof the most advanced countries where many consider drugs and alcohol normal and necessary part of everyday life, are susceptible to acquiring the habit of in-taking meth in addition to various other drugs including marijuana, cocaine and speed. With minimal parental interference and control, culture in many countries in the West allows the juveniles so much freedom that a considerable number of them easily falls prey to drug use and addiction. It is common for both parents to be working in technologically advanced nations. This causes them to be away from their children for a major part of the day. The mechanical life leaves the parents lethargic and severely exhausted by the end of the day, and they are left with little energy to check and supervise how has the performance of their children been in various areas including studies, outing and eating all day long. Instead, children are expected to cooperate with the parents and keep themselves away from all the mayhem that would upset their parents once they get back to home from work. Children are expected to be mature, responsible and independent even before they would develop the sense to be. The busy modern life style in which everybody is running after time and money has served to create sea-wide distance between members of the same family on emotional grounds. In these circumstances, not many families are left with the members having emotional link with one another. The mechanical life equally frustrates the children as it does the parents. In an attempt to suppress their loneliness and seek pleasure to hide their fears, fun-loving young teenagers openly indulge in dangerously bold activities along with their friends who suffer from similar psychological condition due to upsets in their background. Boys and girls are equally susceptible to acquiring the addiction and habit of drug use. However, this paper addresses the issues concerned with girls, assesses the causes of their acquiring the habit of meth use, discusses its short and long term effects on their own life and the people connected with them and evaluates its impact on their family. How teenage girls get into using meth: The most dominant factor responsible for indulgence of teenage girls into addiction and drug use is their disconnection from their parents and lack of parental check and control over them. This culture fundamentally surfaces in response to the laws and regulations that condemn increased control and check of parents over their children and emphasize upon child independence and unnecessarily leveraged rights before the right age. Not only this, likelihood of the shear amount of check parents can keep on their daughters is nullified by the extremely busy mechanical life that keeps the parents away from their daughters for a major portion of their daily life. This is not the case of one or two families. In fact, all girls in school in such societies come from similar backgrounds and share similar fears, frustrations, depression and anxiety. In a vast majority of cases, girls fall prey to meth as a result of their association with morally corrupt group of friends. Friends offer the girl a dose of meth for free and the journey to death commences right from the very first dose of meth. Meth is not quite expensive and meth users undergo all challenges to discover the place where meth can be purchased. The fact that chemicals used as ingredients in the making of meth can be purchased lawfully is an underlying reason why meth has gained the attention of many drug producers in the recent years. (Soule, 2010). Although meth producers conduct the activity secretly in-house or other places where they would not be suspected, yet they certainly can not escape meth lovers from discovering their secret places. As per the findings of Deaner (2010), in the United States (US), the most common age-group, girls belonging to which fall prey to the meth addiction is that between 18 to 26 years. “According to the 2005 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), more than 10.4 million Americans — some as young as age 12 — have tried meth at least once.” (Deaner, 2010). How meth works? Meth is used for methamphetamine, that is used by swallowing, inhaling, or may also be injected into the body with a syringe. “Methamphetamine is a powerful central nervous system (CNS) stimulant.” (Adolescent Substance Abuse Knowledge Base, 2007). It functions by causing excessive amounts of dopamine to get released by the brain, which is essentially a hormone that controls happiness. Excessive release of dopamine causes the girl to be happy, contented and relieved of tension and anxiety. The way the meth is taken into the body has an impact on the effect it has on the individual. For example, in-taking meth by smoking immediately produces a very strong sensation that does not last very long. In contrast to that, meth that is inhaled by nostrils produces a relatively weak sensation that tends to last longer. With continuous use of meth, dopamine cell receptors get used to it and do not get stimulated until a larger amount of meth is taken into the body. Gradually, dangerously large amounts of meth cause the user to experience the same old extent of joy and thus, it ultimately kills the user when she in-takes excessively large amount of meth in an attempt to maintain the level of pleasure she derived from it before. Short and long term effects of meth use: Meth produces drastic physical and mental changes in the girl who uses it. Right after the first time, a girl makes use of the drug, she becomes more energetic, agile, happy, contented and relieved. The girl becomes unnecessarily loquacious and excessively talkative. This fundamentally happens so because the drug functions to boost the metabolism of the girl and she experiences an increase in the efficiency and functionality of all body systems. As more hormones are released, the energy level of the girl skyrockets and this results in an increase in her blood pressure and heart beat. It is not unusual for girls taking meth to temporarily acquire dangerously high body temperature. The high energy level boosts the temperature of her body and this can result in sudden death in extreme cases. Death can also result from respiratory and coronary disorders caused by use of meth in girls with high level of sensitivity and body response towards it. Long term bodily effects of meth use in girls include but are not limited to “violent behavior, anxiety, confusion, insomnia, paranoia, auditory hallucinations, mood disturbances, and delusions.” (Deaner, 2010). Many girls take the chance with this drug only because it is known to cause weight loss. There is indeed, no point denying the fact that meth causes the user to loose weight drastically. Why a girl using meth experiences weight loss is fairly simple to understand. As discussed before, meth causes the metabolism to boost up accompanied with an unusually high rise in body temperature. As this happens, body looses much of the energy produced by the insulin in the blood. However, as the girl addicted to meth does not take care of herself, she is reluctant to eat so that the additional consumption of food would cater for the loss of energy. It is common for drug addicts to leave multiple meals and instead, only rely upon the drug to address their hunger and thirst. The hunger is also faded away because of the anxiety the girl suffers from when she is not able to develop the previous level of pleasure with the same amount of meth in-take as the time passes. Food requirement in a girl addicted to meth is significantly larger than another who is not because of the aforementioned reasons. Thus, as the girl is reluctant to make up for the loss of energy by taking additional meals, the body relies on stored fat to fulfill the additional energy requirements of the body. Continuous reliance of the body on stored fat to meet the bodily energy demand makes the girl look slimmer and skinnier day by day. However, excessive weight loss ruins the looks and instead of looking pretty, the girl starts to look ugly with the course of time. The skin starts to wrinkle because of dehydration of the skin, and the skin develops disorders. In addition to that, the girl suffers from a severe hairfall and baldness can show up in extreme cases. Pupils of the eye become significantly dilated. Parents can discover that their daughter is caught in the addiction of meth by noticing the dilated pupils of the girl’s eyes. Not only this, the girl starts to pale and suffers from shortage of blood. Apart from the bodily disorders, the girl develops mood upsets. Anger dominates in her attitude and she deals her family members with disrespect and humility. Girls addicted to meth may even abuse or occasionally slap the mother in rage and frustration. Meth addict looses respect towards her parents and misses the meals. It is quite common for a meth addict to avoid sitting on the dining table with her family members partly because she is afraid of her family members thinking they would discover she is on drugs having noticed her deteriorated health and reluctance to eat. Impacts of meth addiction of the girl on family: The effects discussed so far pertain only to the physique of the girl addicted to meth. The consequences of meth indeed, spread far wider than only the individual self of such a girl. The evils of meth equally dawn upon the people related directly or indirectly to the addicted girl. The greatest sufferers are the parents. It is often not possible to get the daughter abandon her habit of using meth even if she is willing to make a change; what to talk of the case in which the girl is ignorant of the deterioration of her health and the trauma her parents are caught in. Parents feel ashamed in social circles when their meth addict daughter shows up and insults them openly in the public verbally and through her attitude. Also, it is not difficult for the friends and colleagues of the parents to discover that their daughter is addicted to some drug. Not only the parents, effects of the girl’s addiction to meth also disturb the whole family system of which she is a member. Parents face additional challenge of controlling the rest of their children because being siblings of the addicted girl, they also tend to develop a curiosity to experience the wonders of meth. Who would be surprised to see the younger one copy her elder sister? Obviously, the elder children set standards in all areas for the younger siblings to follow and they tend to adopt the habits of their habits. In other cases, younger children may develop psychological problems and fall prey to depression and anxiety as they see their parents, devote most of their attention only to the elder sister in an attempt to make her relinquish her bad habits of using meth. Conclusion: Meth ruins the social and school life of the girl and she is reluctant to make public appearances. Along with the girl, parent’s social status is also at stake. Parents leave no stone unturned in order to get their daughter mend her habits. They seek help from rehabilitation centers and face the challenge of arranging the expenses that compliments their low financial position. All the hard earned money they spent in paying the tuition fees of the girl goes in vain and they are left with nothing at the end of the day. Complications multiply manifolds if the addicted daughter is herself, a single parent to one or more children. Many divorced or otherwise, single mothers may stick to meth as a means to relieve the tensions of their disturbed life. In such cases, the parents assume added responsibility of babysitting the children of their addicted daughter which is, indeed quite tough to accomplish in old age. Works cited: “Adolescent Substance Abuse Knowledge Base.” 2007. Web. 12 Nov. 2010. . Deaner, Julie. “Teens and Meth Use.” Pearson Education Inc. 2000-2010. Web. 12 Nov. 2010. . Soule, Erinn. “Crystal meth use in American teens.” Helium, Inc. 2002-2010. Web. 12 Nov. 2010. . Read More