Leisure: the Way  to Addiction

Addiction has become a real threat to adolescents  not only in Sudan but in all parts of the world. Addiction can be defined as the body dependency on substance or habits from which the boy or girl  gets physical and mental stimulation in such a way that he/she becomes unable to get rid of, instead in the absence of which the  addicted starts to show physical and psychological symptoms of withdrawal such as (headache, irritation, tension, vomiting etc). The concept of addiction has expanded to include new forms apart from addiction to narcotics and alcohol. Its new simplest forms are addiction to:  food and computer games. However, addiction to narcotics, alcohol, and palliatives  is the major source of threat to adolescents as it threatens their mental, physical, social, and health balance and hence their academic capacities and employment future. Machinery, food, medical and chemical products are produced everyday in the world to make life convenient and cure diseases; nevertheless, these products are soon turned into addiction substances for adolescents  in consumer counting like narcotics, palliatives, painkillers, the internet and mobile games which are  the newest forms of addiction among adolescents.

 Ample leisure time available to adolescents in the Arab countries in particular is one of the main reasons leading young boys and girls to go to internet cafes to surf pornographic sites. This is due to failure of their parents to compensate this time or the  state to provide productive social and leisure activities. For adolescents, the world has been reduced to a small screen either of a PC, a Mobile or TV. The  catastrophic consequences of excessive use of these devices are that: adolescents  spend more than one third of the day watching movies, video clips, sending polyphonic via cellular phone and chatting on the net for long hours about inconsequential matters. The deteriorating economic situation has effectively contributed to encouraging the adolescents to addiction as their parents spend long time working to make ends meet. Most families usually realize that their children have become addicted too late.

Sudanese vagrant adolescent boys and girls have become  abusers of substance,  gambling and sex.

The majority of them think that use of  narcotics, palliatives and alcohol give them confidence to confront their day-to-day problems. They also believe that taking Sudanese(Hashish)  enable them to socialize better. That belief has been consolidated by jokes told to them  about intoxicated people who are said to be witty and attractive.

Addiction has many harmful effects on adolescents. Alcohol and drugs addiction impair  their  mental and physical capacities, which consequently  lead them to dropout from the school. Also addiction to tobacco, with its various forms, results in lungs diseases which are fatal and responsible for the death of ten adolescents perday. Moreover, addiction to sex and masturbation lead to deterioration of adolescents’  health and destroy their  mental abilities. Addiction has its own syndrome as alcohol and drugs addiction mostly leads to lying and stealing in order to obtain money. Adolescents may resort to steal their family or other people or become sexually exploited. That is at the end a chain action. Therefore, the  governmental institutions and the UN organizations, and NGOs working for adolescents should set different social and leisure programs in order to help adolescents to manage their time in a productive way. This also must be accompanied by programmes aiming at addiction treatment in all its various forms and rehabilitation.