Roberto, the youngest of his family, who is 22 years old, today is sober and ready to continue in the recovery program of the Tlalpan Youth Integration Center (CIJ by its initials in Spanish), as he has done in the last five months.

The answer to this problem came when he understood the nature of his illness. From that moment he decided to fight his addiction to drugs, which kept him in a turbulent mental world for seven years.

In his family there was already a history of drug addiction, alcoholism and family disunity. He understood that the circumstances of his life led him to take refuge in drugs. Roberto remembers as he was always a lonely and shy child.

Growing up without self-esteem, in a home with distant parents, without feeling loved and valued bordered him to relate to people who offered him narcotics on the street.

At the age of 14, he tried for the first time, erroneously, drugs in search of space and freedom. It was marijuana.

The time came when he did not control his consumption, the same was grass that ecstasy and acids. His life was diminished, he deserted from school and was fired from his job. To top it off he lost the confidence of his family.

He reflected at that moment: "the drugs didn´t let me open my eyes".

Sitting in front of the desk of one of the clinics of the Center, he tells us that in that place he has found the confidence to understand his illness, but above all, he learned to know himself.

Pensive tells us: if they feel that they can no longer, that they have made many efforts to try to leave and in the end they end up falling again and again, the CIJ (Youth Integration Centers) is the best place to get ahead. "There are no pills that cure drug addiction."

He recommends to the young people that if they decide to rehabilitate, it is mainly because they decided it, not because they are forced by their relatives.

The CIJ is the place where adequate attention is given, the guide to think and analyze their situation, is the way to get out of this problem.

In the care provided by the Youth Integration Centers, a multidisciplinary team with social workers, doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists participate. Young people can arrive on a voluntary basis or sent by schools.

The treatment in addictions starts in the family and they offer psychoeducation so that they contribute in the recovery of the patient.

Claudia Tejeda Romero, a pediatrician and adictologist of this center tells us that the work begins with awareness raising, then works on awareness and inform parents and teachers about the treatment of addictions. Likewise, it should be alerted on the problematic situations of the home that generate the consumption.

The family conflicts that a young man who lives on drugs perpetuates consumption. Addiction should be addressed from a perspective associated with emotional problems such as anxiety, depression and behavioral, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

It has been observed that more than 80 percent of young people present a pathology, there is no pure consumer. The success rate of treatment, when supported with their relatives, is 75 percent, and they are less likely if young people work alone.

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