Many adolescents who use substances do so even though they are aware of the harmful effects, again owing to the reason that they believe their contemporaries do the same. What might explain their decisions to rely on their gut feelings instead of logic and sound reasoning?
Effective prevention programming efforts target the ABCs (attitudes, behaviors, cognition) that underlie adolescent substance use. Having read this article, imagine that you are called upon to develop a prevention program for high school aged students. What might be some effective strategies that you could employ to debunk the myth that "everyone does it" among this audience? Be creative
Addiction is an overwhelming compulsion that is the due to a rewiring of brain circuits that would normally guide our actions to achieve goals and tasks. It rewires the brain and completely takes over the cerebrum, also known as the reward center of the brain. When someone is in active addiction, the cerebrum is wanting and craving Dopamine and nothing else. Dopamine is released at high amounts when using narcotics. In short, if the brain is being rewired to only want Dopamine because of the habitual use of substances, gut feeling or not, an addict will continually use the drug.
If I had to create and implement a prevention program that debunked the "everyone does it" myth, I would incorporate a mixture of psychosocial theories of etiology and target obvious risk and protective factors at the individual, family and community level. I would also want to be heavily involved with the media in order to change the content that the adolescent demographic is exposed to.
