Growing up and entering the teenage years exposes young people to new things that they have never had to deal with before, such as drugs. Many children do not know how to handle a situation when faced with drugs, which opens the possibility of bad decision making. Just one bad decision can lead to a lifetime of addiction and struggling. The use of dangerous drugs is a growing issue amongst teens in real life while also depicted in modern works of literature such as Crank and Go Ask Alice. With no prior exposure to them, teenagers have no clue how to deal with a situation involving drugs.
They get involved with drugs for many different reasons. For one, peer pressure can take over their extremely impressionable minds and the pressure to fit in can become all they think about. Using drugs can also be the result from stress at school, in sports, or at home. Teenagers who have been exposed to drugs, with a parent or sibling involved in them, are at a higher risk to become addicted. When addiction is a problem in the family, the children often “don’t feel loved [and] have a greater chance of using drugs and becoming addicted,”(Zernike). No matter the case, the long term effects never cross their minds.
They do not understand how dangerous these drugs can be until it is too late. A repeated use of any drug can lead to an addiction very quickly, whether it is soft drugs, such as marijuana, or hard drugs, such as cocaine or LSD. According to a FOX News report on teenage drug abuse, “marijuana use among teenagers is up 80 percent, with one in 10 teens reporting that they use the drug at least 20 times a month,”(Alvarez). With that said, marijuana is referred to as a gateway drug. Teenagers who use marijuana sometimes lead into harder drugs with much more dangerous effects.
Street drugs are not the only commonly used drugs amongst teens. Teenagers who have been hurt can become quickly addicted to the prescription pain medication that they receive in the hospital. Studies have shown that “some of the most commonly abused prescription drugs include painkillers, with over 5. 1 million people taking them nonmedically in 2010″(Alvarez). These prescription medications start out as a way to help teenagers deal with the pain that they have encountered due to an accident, however, they are extremely addictive and can lead to hurting them more than helping after the fact.
A study by the New York Times has shown that the United States has a higher percentage of teenagers using drugs than other areas, such as Europe. According to the study, “41% of 10th graders in the U. S. had tried marijuana, compared with 17% of those in Europe … 23% of the students in the United States had used other illicit drugs, compared with 6% of Europeans,”(Zernike). Since the United States has a higher drug usage, the topic is important to discuss. Awareness need to be brought to the teenagers and their families in order to decrease the percentage of teenagers who are affected by drug abuse.
With more teenagers educated on the effects of drugs, the percentage of teenagers who chose to do drugs will decrease. Drug awareness can be brought to the public in many ways, even through the world of literature. Crank by Ellen Hopkins brings awareness to teenage drug abuse by telling the story of a teenage girl named Kristina who becomes addicted to methamphetamines. In the beginning of the story, Kristina is known as a great kid. She gets straight A’s, has great friends, and never lets herself get into bad situations.
Before visiting her father who has a history of drug abuse, she promises herself that she would never end up like him as she says “I promised. Swore. Crossed my heart. Recited the DARE pledge verbatim,”(Hopkins). She knew that she was better than that. However, after feeling neglected by her father, Kristina looks to the other teens in his neighborhood to get away from his home. She has a summer fling with a boy that she meets who later introduces her to meth. Kristina describes her inexperience with drugs while saying, “In school, I was never confronted with drugs, surely never sought them out,”(Hopkins).
Because of this, she is unsure of how to handle the situation when faced with what they call “the monster”. She ends up doing it, unaware of how it would affect her. She does not realize until later how, “two days, two nights, no sleep, no food, [coming] down off the monster… ” can have negative effects on a person (Hopkins). When the summer is over, Kristina goes back home to her mother a completely different person; an addict. Kristina” thought about the monster, dreamed about the monster, lusted for the monster, regretted knowing the monster … ut hadn’t touched the monster in over a month,”(Hopkins).
Even after a month of being away from the drug, it was still all she could think about. This shows how much of a hold drugs can have on a person’s life and how quickly they can become addicted. She was no longer the responsible teen who pledged against drugs. Instead, she now picked fights with her family, snuck out, lied, and did anything she could to get high. She disregards her old friends who she was once so close to and becomes friends with the stoners and drug dealers, even becoming a drug dealer herself.
The downward spiral Kristina put herself in continued on throughout her life. She gets pregnant due to a rapist she encounters while buying drugs one day. Even after discontinuing her use of drugs in return for motherhood, Kristina says, “Crank is more than a drug. It’s a way of life. You can turn your back. But you can never really walk away,”(Hopkins). Thus proving that the effects of drugs never go away and users are constantly reminded every day of the negative experiences they have had with them. Crank shows just how easy it is for teenagers to become addicted to drugs.
It follows the life of a teenager’s perspective on getting into drugs and how they affect her in the long run. It does its job of bringing awareness to teenage drug addiction because, “it gives us a blunt, ugly, and completely raw foray into addiction,”(Giselle). It does not sugar coat it or give it a happy ending, because drug addiction is not something to glorify. Since “no addiction of any kind is ever pretty,” Crank is a way to “portray … a drug infested haze in the most realistic of ways,”(Giselle). Similarly, Go Ask Alice by Beatrice Sparks also tells a story of a teenager who makes the mistake of getting into drugs.
Alice starts a diary of her life, which quickly turns into a story of the beginning of her addiction all the way until she overdoses. After starting at a new school, the pressure to fit in overcomes Alice. When invited to a party and offered LSD, Alice tries it in order to be like the others. She recalls her trip by writing, “I was dancing before the whole group, performing, showing off, and enjoying every second of it,”(Sparks). Realizing she was starting to fit in, Alice continues to do drugs of all kinds. She justifies her drug use even when it comes to the point where she needs them just to function in her everyday life.
Alice says, “I have to take dexies to stay high at school and at work and on dates and to do my homework, then I have to take tranquilizers to bear up at home,”(Sparks). She gets addicted so quickly that she can not even go to school without getting a fix. Alice abandons her friends and replaces them with others who she constantly gets high with. After moving out of her home to live with these friends, she experiences bad situations that involve drugs. She moves home to get sober and promises herself that she will never let herself get involved with drugs again.
Alice vows to be sober as she says, “I will never ever, ever, under any circumstances use drugs again. They are the root and cause of this whole … mess I am in and I wish with all my heart and soul that I had never heard of them,”(Sparks). Yet, addiction is not that easy to overcome. Even the slightest reminder can throw someone off course and make them crave those drugs again. Just seeing Alice’s old friend again causes her to have an overdose on LSD after doing so well with being sober. Although she ends her diary saying that she is better, the real story does not end there.
The end of the book includes an edit stating in which that same 15 year old girl had later died due to a drug overdose. This shows that as much as a drug user can think that they have things under control, any little thing can set them spiraling downhill again. Drug addiction does not go away. It stays with a user for life, whether they are lucky enough to get sober or not. Go Ask Alice was considered to be “unabashed, unadulterated, and unapologetic,”(Jamison). This is the best way to compose a story about teenage drug addiction because it shows the reality of it.
Just like Crank, there is no sugar coating this story. The New York Times writer Leslie Jamison acknowledges that, “peer pressure looms large,” within this book. Teenagers can relate to the peer pressure aspect of the book and hopefully not let it affect them as it negatively affected Alice. Jamison also acknowledges that she too could relate to the book as she says, “I saw myself in this “real” girl. ” Written in a diary style, teenagers are drawn to the book because it gives them a way to see that teenage drug addiction could happen to them too if they get involved with drugs.
Drug addiction can take over anyone. Crank and Go Ask Alice prove that fact showing that even two responsible, intelligent teenagers can get addicted to drugs. The rising addiction rate amongst teenagers in America shows that many teens are making the wrong decisions. Books such as Crank and Go Ask Alice should be read by all teenagers to show how even doing a drug once can lead to a lifetime of struggle. Bringing awareness to teenage drug addiction will educate teenagers and their families and hopefully lead to a decline in the addiction rate.
