About this leaflet This is one in a series of leaflets for parents, teachers and young people entitled Mental Health and Growing Up. The aims of these leaflets are to provide practical, up-to-date information about mental health problems (emotional, behavioural and psychiatric disorders) that can affect children and young people. This leaflet aims to point out the problems with misusing drugs and alcohol, and gives you some ideas about how to avoid falling into doing this.

Introduction Lots of young people want to know about drugs and alcohol. It is important to know, that despite one's willpower, it's very easy to end up finding that you have a problem. You may initially think that you have your drug or alcohol use `under control', however, these things can be very addictive and may soon start to control you.