Contrary to popular belief, the transition from abuse back to use or nonuse is successfully made by most young drug abusers. This developmental model illustrates the importance of social factors in the acquisition, shaping, and maintenance of drug-use patterns. For adolescents, drug use is a socially learned pattern of behavior. Experimentation with drugs is normative for adolescents; abuse of drugs is not. For most healthy adolescents there are many social benefits and minimal negative health consequences of drug use. Typically a friend, older sibling, or parent introduces the adolescent to drugs. Rarely are adolescents exposed to coercive peer pressures to use drugs; peer influence is most often a subtle, indirect process of modeling and social support. Although drug use is primarily a function of social influences, the transition from drug use to abuse also involves elements of genetic/biological factors. The drug user typically takes drugs to achieve a pleasant state of mind; the abuser is more likely to take drugs to escape an unpleasant state of mind. Only one of four drug abusers ever receives treatment for abuse. Most drug abusers recover within 4 years and do so without treatment. The transition from drug abuse to use or nonuse is facilitated by establishing a nonabusing peer group, avoiding social and physical environments associated with drug abuse, and some degree of abstinence from drugs, but not necessarily total abstinence; half of recovered abusers return to controlled use. 81 references