Young adults
Addiction Rates in Young Adults and College Students
Choosing a college, keeping up grades, launching a career — the pressure on young adults is tremendous, and substances promise a shortcut through the stress. Here is what young people actually use, and how campuses and communities can help.
About this guide
Young adults and college students
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” Young adults are expected to answer that question, and the pressure can be tremendous. For students far from home, peers become adjunct family — and if their peers drink, they join in. For some, that drinking spins out of control.
Of all the substances available to them, college students lean hardest on the oldest one: alcohol. It is served at parties, discussed in classes, and easy to get through older friends of buying age. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, close to 60 percent of full-time college students drink alcohol monthly — compared with about 48 percent of their peers who are not enrolled. And because alcohol is everywhere on campus, a student can hide a drinking problem for months while seeming like the life of the party.
Ambrosia Behavioral Health treats young adults at our South Florida programs, where therapy digs into the stresses — school, career, family, finances — that drive substance use in the first place.
What alcohol abuse costs students
Alcohol delivers the appearance of calm and social grace — it can make a worried student feel sophisticated and in control. But believing you need a drink to succeed at a party can morph into needing a drink to simply talk with peers. Alcohol abuse in college students has been linked to:
- Car accidents — slow reflexes and poor coordination behind the wheel can cause harm in an instant the student may not even remember
- Fights — alcohol lowers inhibitions, so flared tempers turn into aggression
- Injuries — trips, slips, and falls while intoxicated that break bones or cause lacerations
- Unprotected sex — decisions a sober student would not make, with lasting consequences
What other substances do students abuse?
Alcohol is the major player, but young people dabble in other drugs to push through the pressures of adulthood — and some mix and match, using stimulants to power through a hard stretch and alcohol to come down and sleep. A savvy young person can mistake that for a life hack; the damage to delicate brain circuitry is immense.
Marijuana
As more states legalize cannabis, it gets easier for young people to buy and use, and daily use has climbed among college-age adults — with higher daily-use rates among those not enrolled in college.
Prescription stimulants
So-called “study drugs” like Adderall are made for ADHD, but students lean on them to focus and endure late-night study sessions — and abuse becomes more likely the longer they are in school.
Opioids
The United States remains in the grip of an opioid epidemic, and college students are not immune. Once young people start using prescription painkillers to get high, they find it very hard to stop.
Benzodiazepines
Drugs like Valium and Klonopin are often described as alcohol without the hangover. They cause persistent brain changes, and after repeated use, students can need months to taper off — time taken from studies and careers.
Novel drugs
Substances sold as “bath salts” or “research chemicals” promise a strong high without legal consequences; when one formulation is banned, dealers shift the recipe and keep selling online.
How campuses and communities are responding
A “party school” reputation is no longer a marketing asset. College administrators are supporting students who enroll with preexisting addiction issues — campus recovery programs are spreading across the country, and sober houses wrap young people in support from sober peers, often with counseling and 12-step meetings built in. Administrators are also working to reduce substance abuse directly:
Communities are taking similar steps. Young people who skip college may not have a campus umbrella over them, but community awareness and treatment programs can help them prevent or treat an addiction all the same.
- Enforcing campus consequences for possession or intoxication
- Inspecting known party locations, including fraternities
- Keeping campus events sober, including alumni gatherings
- Holding periodic training on the dangers of drug use
What treatment looks like for young people
Whether a young person is in college or the community, treatment programs tend to look similar: shine a light on the stresses that lead to substance abuse, then build the skills to handle those triggers without relapsing. In therapy, young people might explore stress, childhood, careers, or finances — lessons that can get them sober and help them grow into role models for the next generation.
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