“Certainly social pressures are part of adolescent vulnerability, but perhaps more important is that the teenage brain lends itself to highly motivated exploration of the world in order to learn how to be an adult. This is the time to take risks! Apparently the stage of brain construction during adolescence makes the brain more vulnerable to addiction than at any other time of life.”

I thought this was interesting because it looks at adolescent addiction from a fresh angle – it’s just part of the quest to grow up. I remember something that Fabienne said during class once – that our students are simply “trying on different outfits” and seeing if anything interesting fits. All of a sudden, an entirely new world of possibilities has opened up to adolescents, and for the first time, they can can feel like adults doing adult things. I remember how adult drinking coffee for the first time made me feel, and I wanted to chase that feeling. Drug addiction is in some ways an addiction to that feeling – that you’re doing something that adults, and not children, do. I also find it interesting that this quotation says that the brain participating in motivated exploration is more important than social pressures, which the article claimed earlier were one of the most important factors in addiction. I think seeing drug addiction in adolescents through this lens opens up a fascinating and not often explored view.