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the people who have substance abuse problems in adulthood,
nine in ten people started using before they were eighteen. This is
not meant to suggest that people who use substances after age
twenty-one are safe from addiction, but researchers have identi-
fi ed a clear link between addiction and early exposure.
Colten Wooten was sixteen and a high school sophomore in
Raleigh, North Carolina, when he tried heroin for the fi rst time.
He had already been using amphetamines and cocaine to get
high, and he thought heroin would help him ease down. By his
senior year, he was using heroin every single day. By age twenty-
four, Wooten had organ damage from prolonged drug use and
was fl irting with death from a possible

“This is how people die. overdose. At one point, after shooting
They overdose in unknown up heroin all night in a stranger’s apart-
company, and their bodies ment, he realized he was down to his
are shoved into coat closets last dose. At that moment, the thought
in dilapidated buildings occurred to him that he might die. Woo-
and aren’t discovered for ten writes, “This is how people die. They
months.” 17
overdose in unknown company, and
— Colten Wooten, a drug addict since their bodies are shoved into coat clos-
age sixteen ets in dilapidated buildings and aren’t
discovered for months.” That night, he
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called his mother and tried to get treatment for his addictions.
His path to recovery has been troubled. Use at such a young age
might have contributed to making his recovery journey that much
more challenging.

The Video Game Industry
Exposure to addictive substances and behaviors is not limited
to home and family. Young people, in particular, are bombarded
with products that are designed to enhance the consumer’s
desire for more. By successfully hooking young people on a
product or substance, those companies create for themselves
a steady base of lifelong customers (or, some would say, ad-
dicts). Some experts cite video games as an example. Not

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