Desperate teens look for rehab aid — report

● Les Naidoo* was 17 when he turned to the bottle for comfort because of a failed relationship.

For two years, the Durban teenager consumed any type of alcohol he could get his hands on, until his family shunned him and he lost his factory job.

“My relationship failed and I could not deal with it so I started drinking. It ruined my life,” he said.

But about six months ago Naidoo went to the Anti-Drug Forum in Chatsworth, a rehabilitation facility south of Durban.

He is one of scores of young South Africans who are checking themselves into rehabilitation programmes in an attempt to kick their addictions.

The Medical Research Council’s Sacendu project — which monitors alcohol, tobacco and drug use trends based on data from substance-use treatment centres every six months — revealed in a report released last week that almost 9,700 people were admitted to treatment centres and programmes in the second half of last year, 424 more than in the first half of the year.

The report said alcohol was the dominant substance used in Gauteng, the North West, Northern Cape and Free State.

Of particular concern was the “significant increase in alcohol-related admissions for persons younger than 20 years in the Eastern Cape and the Western Cape”, it said.

Across most treatment sites, cannabis was the drug of choice for those younger than 20, the report said.

In KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and Mpumalanga, cannabis was the most common substance used. Heroin use, including nyaope and whoonga, remained problematic countrywide.

Methamphetamine, commonly known as tik, emerged as the primary substance used in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape.

Sandra de Villiers, who runs the Step Away treatment centre in Port Elizabeth, said stress, anxiety and depression were driving young people to substance use.

De Villiers said in recent weeks she had seen “a huge increase in inquiries for drug and alcohol rehab for the ages 17 to 20. This is something we have not experienced in the past eight years.”

Adrie Vermeulen, national co-ordinator of the South African National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, said there was no “easy answer” as to why more young people were abusing substances.

But she believes the high unemployment rate and a sense of “hopelessness about their futures” could be factors.

* Not his real name