Peer pressure during the teenage years is at the top of the list of factors pushing youngsters into experimenting with drugs, according to Dr. D. Vincent Biase, former director of research and development at Daytop Village, a leading drug treatment center. But it shouldn’t be blamed for drug abuse, which is usually the result of internal unhappiness in addition to the drive toward social acceptability.

Kids see drug and alcohol use as a part of being grownup. In addition, drug use and drinking are considered something to do like cruising around in a car or hanging out on a street corner. Kids also use because they want tot do what their friends do, are bored, like the way it feels, or are just curious. Some middle-class youngsters feel resentful that they’ve been sheltered and protected almost to psychic death. One of them says, “I know there’s a lot more to life than I’ve experienced. The sixties music is wonderful and they take a lot about drugs, so you begin to wonder, ‘What am I missing?’”

But youngsters who abuse drugs add other reasons to this list. Billy says he got deeply involved “because I thought my world was shit and I didn’t think much of myself, either.” He got drunk for the first time in sixth grade and by ninth grade was smoking marijuana every day and using “everything I could get my hands on.” In tenth grade he tried LSD and liked it. When his mother asked if he was “on something” he countered with the standard “How could you accuse me?” His father thought it was just a stage. Billy dropped out of his first treatment program, and swore he would never smoke again, but is finally back in treatment after his parents threatened to kick him out.

Like Billy, youngsters who use drugs as medication to counteract sadness or blot out intolerable home situations are more likely than others to become dependent on chemicals to get through the day. One of them says, “I have so many bad feelings that I get high because I want to feel better.” The dangerous thing about drugs is that they work—at least for a while. Dr. Rodney Skager, professor emeritus at UCLA, says they not only help kids feel better, smoothing some of the normal jagged feelings of adolescence, but they also help them feel different—more capable, more likable, more complete. During the honeymoon period, drugs seem to do all the good things they are usually guided by more practiced friends. They help the novices enjoy the experience, and shield them so they don’t see any frightening effects. Therefore, they don’t believe their parents’ warnings.