Could Anxiety Be a Leading Cause of Substance Abuse Among Teenagers?

Anxiety is a psychological state affecting the emotions of the person and taking them on a roller coaster journey. In normal cases, it is a harmless temporary part of childhood, or under severe circumstances, it could develop into a disorder reflecting as fear, nervousness and shyness, pushing teenagers to avoid their regular visited places or practiced activities.

Usually, anxiety among teenagers develops as a normal reaction to stress caused by exams, meeting new people, speaking in public, going on a date, competing in sports… and sometimes, a simple thought about the situation will make them anxious.

With the complexity of the phase through which teenagers endure, they might show different signs of various cases at the same time, including some quarrels with their parents or friends, making the anxiety signs go unseen. Therefore, it is very important to stay aware if any of the following signs start appearing:

• Excessive fears or worries
• Excessive restlessness and tendency to be warry and vigilant
• In social situations, the person appears to be dependent, withdrawn or uneasy, and emotionally restrained
• Pains emerging mainly from tension, cramps, stomachaches, headaches, back, limbs, in addition to chronic fatigue
• During adolescence, the anxiousness focuses on body looks and feels, social acceptance, and conflicts about independence with parents
• Engagement in risky behavior or drugs experimentation to reduce or deny their fears

Furthermore, recent studies highlighted the increased risk of a poor school performance, miss out on important social experiences and an exacerbated engagement in substance abuse that are associated with anxiety. In fact, substance abuse such as alcohol, tobacco or cannabis, is considered a way of self-mediation among teenagers to alleviate their anxiety symptoms and hide from the public. However, the situation could be reversed in terms that substance use or abuse could be the reason for the development of anxiety. Additionally, with the existence of different types of anxiety, each one could be associated to a certain substance abuse. For instance:

• Social anxiety disorder is most commonly associated with alcohol abuse, as it helps teenagers reduce their social anxiety
• Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with both alcohol and drug abuse
• Panic attacks or panic disorder are very common, and this type of anxiety specifically could be caused by drug abuse, mainly cannabis.

Suffering from these situations could always be reversed, and people could seek different means to get out of this situations. Those solutions include:

• Recognizing one’s emotions and the reason pushing the person to feel the way they do
• Admitting that a situation is stressful and seeking the help of a professional such as a psychologist, psychotherapist, social worker
• Seeking medical assistance to obtain the adequate treatment against anxiety
• Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which identifies the types of thoughts and beliefs that are causing anxiety, keeping in mind the importance to have the will to change
• Biofeedback, consisting of electronic measures to know how the body responds to stress
• Relaxation and meditation techniques to reduce anxiety and negative thoughts. They include breathing, meditation, mindfulness-based stress reduction, listening to calming music, yoga and tai chi, among many others.

It is important to keep in mind that there is no situation which lasts forever, everything could be reversed when there is a will to change and people have enough awareness about the potential harmful situations. Therefore, seeking medical help, or that of an NGO is always the smartest solution to help yourself or a loved one.