Substance Abuse: A Young Adult Perspective
(How do you differentiate between substance abuse and recreational use?)
Josh:
I believe that substance abuse is when taking a drug interferes with your personal life, like the ability to work or to care for your family or yourself even. Abuse is essentially ruining your life.
(Do you feel that most of your friends can be categorized as recreational users or substance abusers?)
Mike:
I would say that probably 95% of my friends are recreational (drug users). There are a few (of my friends) that can’t really handle it (drugs) and it crosses the line a little bit, but I would say most are recreational (drug users).
(What do you feel is the most abused substance among your peers?)
Josh:
I know a handful of people who definitely have a drinking problem. I met up with one of my friends at the bars the other night because she had asked me to come out, and then the next morning I had met up with her and we had hung out for hours. She asked me: “Did you end up coming out last night? I don’t remember anything because I was blacked out”.
But recreationally, it’s obviously marijuana.
(When would you begin to think your friend has a substance abuse problem?)
Josh:
Like if they miss work, or they miss social events, or if they don’t have any money, like they can’t pay bills because they’re too busy spending all their money on drugs or something like that.
(Do you feel that drug use has increased among young adults in past years?)
Mike:
I would say that it’s increased a little bit just because of how easy it is to get drugs now-a-days. You could pretty much ask, out of five people, you ask five people and three (people) probably know where to get drugs. So, it’s just widely available, so that’s how it has increased, but then I think it’s stayed the same because people are also making the same decisions for themselves.
(If you feel your friend has a substance abuse problem, what would you suggest they do?)
Mike:
You definitely have to talk to somebody because it’s a spiraling path that just keeps going downward and it’s kind of like a snowball effect; if it keeps going the snowball is just going to get bigger, it’s going to roll faster, but if you go and talk to somebody, you can slowly stop that and work your way back up.
(What do you feel in the best way to decrease substance abuse among young adults?)
Morgan:
Education, not just spitting out the facts of them but also helping them to understand what it does in the long term and understanding what actually qualifies as abuse, I suppose. And then (the) community could really help. Like, there’s not that much to do around or in Wisconsin that’s late night, or fun.