Substance abuse is, and has always been, an indisputable fact of life. People - especially young people - abuse various legal and illegal substances for any number of reasons: to intensify feelings, to achieve deeper consciousness, to escape reality, to self-medicate. And as substance-abusing teenagers mature, they pose particular challenges to the professionals charged with keeping them clean and sober and helping them maintain recovery into adulthood.

Adolescent Substance Abuse: Evidence-Based Approaches to Prevention and Treatment offers clear, interdisciplinary guidance that grounds readers in the many contexts - developmental, genetic, social, and familial among them - crucial to creating effective interventions and prevention methods. Its contributors examine current findings regarding popularly used therapies, including psychopharmacology, residential treatment, school- and community-based programs, group homes, and specific forms of individual, family, and group therapy.

Accessible to a wide professional audience, this volume:
• Presents evidence-based support for the treatment decision-making process by identifying interventions that work, might work, and don't work.
• Identifies individual traits associated with susceptibility to substance abuse and addiction in youth.
• Provides a biogenetic model of the effects of drugs on the brain (and refines the concept of gateway drugs).
• Evaluates the effectiveness of prevention programs in school and community settings.
• Adds historical, spiritual, and legal perspectives on substance use and misuse.

This volume is an all-in-one reference for counseling professionals and clinicians working with youth and families as well as program developers in state and local agencies and graduate students in counseling and prevention.