1) To ease their suffering.
Many people go through extremely traumatic events in their life; many people go through painful experiences in their life, and they turn to drugs to cover the horrible memories or pain they feel. Drugs or alcohol can temporarily make a person feel ‘normal’ again, like they remember feeling in the past. Emotional pain can be scary for the individual experiencing it, they will try just about anything to relieve the pain. Drug use is often thought of as a form of escape into an altered reality. These people could benefit from working with psychologists to help repair their damaged mind. Drugs usually only deepen the issue.
2) Modelling behavior.
As teenagers, it’s very easy to think that drug and alcohol are ‘alright’ and can be controlled and handled, especially if they see others around them doing the same thing. After all, that’s what they have seen and learned. Individuals with a family history of drug or alcohol abuse are far more likely to develop an addiction than an individual with no family background of addiction.
3) Curiosity and boredom.
Curiosity kills the cat; and an idle mind is the devil’s playground. Teenagers and young adults often seek excitement, especially curious at activities they have yet to try. The desires to find out, and the search for novelty, make them more susceptible in wanting to experiment with drug and alcohol. Unfortunately, once they begin experimenting, chances of them falling into trap of drug/alcohol dependency increases.
4) Chasing the high.
Any person who has tried drugs would tell you it feels like ‘ecstasy’ – one of the best feelings of their life. Drugs overload high pleasure sensors in your brain that are much more extreme than regular joy/happiness. Thus, it is common for an individual to get hooked onto such extreme pleasure, and spend their day craving for such ‘ecstasy’. This is a viscous cycle, as we all know that the highs are equally as strong as the lows when coming off drugs.
5) Misinformation.
Inaccurate information are easily obtainable from peers, media, etc. This is perhaps one of the most avoidable causes of drug use. Get yourself, your friends, your children (anyone) educated on drug use, so the real facts about the danger of drug use.