Addiction

Addiction (smoking, alcohol, prohibited substances) is one of the most frequent risks in case of teenagers. They try out these substances at an early age and parallel with this sex differences are decreasing and the number of regular users is also increasing. More and more teenagers get drunk at the weekends. The consequences of using mind-altering drugs are unsafe-sex, accidents and the increasing numbers of crimes.

According to the survey of HBSC in 2010 17% of the Hungarian teenagers smoke regularly and a month before the survey half of the interviewed boys and almost one third of the girls confessed that they had already been drunk (Halmai and Németh, 2011a). According to the latest research data (Elekes, 2011) smoking occurs mainly in families having lower economic and social status. The socioeconomic background of alcohol addiction is not so evident and clear. Dissatisfaction with parents as well as poor, weak parental control increase drug addiction while better academic achievement decreases this habit. It is worth mentioning “that teenagers who do activities regularly, at least once a weak, have hobbies and spend their free time reading they rarely get drunk or drank five drinks at a gulp in the previous month. The life prevalence of drugs is also lower in these cases” (Elekes, 2011 p. 106).