Brain Development | Mental Illness and Underage Drug | Alcohol Misuse – yes – there is a strong, deeply important connection between these three that must be understood. For this reason, I’m sharing a video by Pathway to Prevention that Cathy Taughinbaugh of TreatmentTalk.org shared on her website recently.

The messages it contains are extremely important, and in my opinion, they reinforce the following key points of the connection between Brain Development | Mental Illness and Underage Drug | Alcohol Misuse:

1. We must help all concerned — young people, parents, teachers, society — understand how the brain develops from birth through 25 and that what happens during that development can greatly influence a young person’s “decision” to use drugs or alcohol. [See related post, “Understanding Addiction: Why Do Some People Become Addicted?“]
2. We must understand that addiction and mental illness are brain diseases. A disease by its simplest definition is “something” that changes cells. Addiction and mental illness (depression, anxiety, ADHD…) change (or are the cause of change or caused by genetic differences) brain cells. Because the brain controls everything we think, feel, say and do, those changes can influence the way a person thinks and feels, what they say and do and how they behave.
3. We must understand that alcohol and/or drug ABUSE (not just dependence, aka addiction) changes the chemical and structural make-up of the brain. These changes change the way a person feels, thinks, acts and behaves. These changes  make a person more susceptible to their risk factors (if any) — see #1 above — and the development of an addiction.
4. The brain of a person under age 22-25 is NOT the same as a person with a fully developed brain. Knowing this can help all of us better appreciate that going along with the notion that “all kids experiment with drugs and/or alcohol and will grow out of it” is a dangerous one to embrace. [See related post, “How Teens Can Become Alcoholics Before Age 21.”]

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Lisa Frederiksen

Author | Speaker | Consultant | Founder at BreakingTheCycles.com

Lisa Frederiksen is the author of hundreds of articles and 12 books, including her latest, "10th Anniversary Edition If You Loved Me, You'd Stop! What you really need to know when your loved one drinks too much,” and "Loved One In Treatment? Now What!” She is a national keynote speaker with over 30 years speaking experience, consultant and founder of BreakingTheCycles.com. Lisa has spent the last 19+ years studying and simplifying breakthrough research on the brain, substance use and other mental health disorders, secondhand drinking, toxic stress, trauma/ACEs and related topics.

Latest posts by Lisa Frederiksen (see all)

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