Interview with a Teenager

Interview:  Sophomore, LeAnne Marshal from Prince William County Public Schools

Prince William, Virginia; March 25, 2013

 

I am 15 years old.  I have a lot of friends that I hang with.  We do a lot of things together: we study together, we go events together, we go to church together, we talk together, we share each other’s home.  Most of us have known each since elementary school.  We mostly live in the same community.   We are among the same graduation class, so we are about the same age.  The oldest friend in our circle of friends is 16 years old.  There are about 15 of us in the friend group.

 

Q and A

 

Question:  Does anyone in your friend group drink alcohol?

Answer:    75% of the group drink alcohol now.  I do not.

 

Question:  Do you think that alcohol a drug?

Answer:    I know that alcohol is a drug, but a lot of my friends do not say that alcohol is a Drug. They think alcohol is okay like marijuana.

 

Question:  Does anyone in the group use Marijuana?

Answer:   50% of the group use marijuana now or have used the drug in the past year; I    do not and never have.

 

Question:  Do you think that drinking alcohol increases a person’s  appetite for other drugs?

Answer:   Yes, I believe that drinking alcohol will increase a person’s appetite for other drugs.

 

Comments:  Is there anything else you would like to say?

Yes, All of us talk about alcohol, how it taste, what it is like to drink it, how you may feel if you are drunk on alcohol, what our parents might say and do if they knew that we were drinking.

 

 

As a professional in the field of Substance Abuse and Addiction, I have found what this school age teenage said to be true with the age group 15 to 19 no matter the city or state.