DRUGS,
SEX, AND DEPRESSED TEENS

Topics: Addiction; Consequences; Depression; Drinking; Drugs; Emotions; Morality; Premarital Sex; Teens; Temptation

References: Job 4:8; Proverbs 5:22–23; Romans 2:8–9; Galatians 6:7–8; Ephesians 4:17–19

Doctors and social scientists have long assumed that many teens get into drugs and sex to deal with depression. However, a study published in the October 2005 edition of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine reverses that assumption. According to health policy researcher Denise Dion Hallfors, a recent study shows teens get depressed after substance abuse and sexual activity, not the other way around.

The national survey of 13,491 adolescents showed that about 25 percent, called “abstainers,” had never had sex, smoked, drunk alcohol, or taken drugs. Only 4 percent of those teens experienced depression. The girls in the 75 percent who had taken drugs and experimented with sex were two to three times more likely to experience depression than abstaining girls. Boys who engaged in binge drinking were 4.5 times more likely to experience depression than boys in the abstaining group. Boys smoking marijuana were more than three times more likely to be depressed than those who abstained.

Dr. Hallfors warns, “Parents, educators, and health practitioners now have even more reason to be concerned about teen risk behaviors and to take action about alcohol, drugs, and sex.”

—Taunya English, “Teen Sex and Drug Use May Be Cause of Depression, Not the Effect,” Health Behavior News Service (September 2005)