What should you do if your teen is abusing prescription drugs?

When I was in school, I'm 18 now when I was maybe 13 or 14 I knew ALOT of people that would take like 5 Loratabs and other crap, I wasn't into that crap but had some friends that did and knew alot that did.

It absolutely happens in every school everywhere. Prescriptions are so easy to get now days. Alot easier then pot and easier to hide too..........

I knew a girl who overdosed and died on methadone 2 years ago. She was 17.

I abused a lot of drugs in high school also. I got clean just before I turned 18. I'm 21 now and took
4 years in February. :)

Im dealing with it now. My 16 yo and 3 of her "friends" were caught exchanging pills. The school did NOTHING (in my opinion) to punish these girls other than suspend them for 3 days. My daughter tells people that it was NO BIG DEAL, IT WAS A BAD DECISION, ETC. She thinks Im over reacting. I know its going to get worse before it gets better.

Haven't you seen the ads and commericals that state that the easiest place for kids to get drugs is in their own home? That includes alcohol. Kids go through medicine cabinets and take what they know will give the desired feelings. It's a lot easier for kids to get things now than when I was growing up. With the internet, they can look up the effects of precribtion drugs.

It is so scary. Our kids leave the house and have all these outside influenses that we cannot control... the best advise i have is teach them morals. That things like that are not just competely uncool but hurts there body. Not that you dont want them to have fun. just that you dont want them to hurt themselves. show them things on the internet. Pics of drunk driver crashes, and explain the same thing can happen. find stuff about people thier age who are now in jail.... take them to a jail. it's the things we do that help them... we cannot help the outside world that is now so scary. Be sceptical. They earn your trust! and #1 know thier friends and thier friends parents!!!!

doggone it. I was hoping mice were getting into my Lortabs.

as a mother? no. As a teen, I went through this. I was extremely depressed due to somethings that happened. so I started to take a few pills, a few turned into a lot. I got them off of friends in school. etc. (my parents never had any in their own home). They really never even knew I was on them, until I had to go to the hospital for extreme stomach pains. The pills and stress gave me an ulcer. That's when they (dr's) tested my blood and found some of the pills I had been taking. My parents made sure to keep me off of them through a lot of different things. But it didnt' really matter, after the ulcer I really didn't want to take any more anyways and offered to get help. I've been clean for almost 5 years now.

One thing about teens is, they will do what they are gonna do no matter what you want them to do. I was a drug addict as a teen and up until a year ago when I found out I was pregnant with my daughter, not pills but other stuff, and my parents tried VALIANTLY to stop me but it wasn't going to happen. Try to keep it from starting, cause once someone has decided that they love pills (or weed, or coke, or heroin) it's a heck of a lot harder to stop them.