What Causes Teen Addiction?
Addiction is a disease that ravages the brain and rewires its reward, motivation and memory circuitries. This leads to insatiable cravings for a particular action or item — whether it’s alcohol, drugs or so on. Substance abuse becomes an addiction when the single-minded pursuit of the substance trumps the user’s well-being despite the obvious damage that’s being done to them.
Teen addiction is complex and its causes are many. Often, it’s a delicate combination of biological and environmental factors that contributes to the prolonged substance abuse and, eventually, addiction. The road to addiction is different for everyone and your teen’s story is a unique one, but there are some risk factors for long-term use to pay close attention to.