Most Important Things Known About Addiction - Essay Example

My cousin is a teacher who takes his students to know all about addiction. I am rigorously opposed to his view and my claim is that people do not have to understand what addiction means; they have to understand what is going to happen if any kind of addiction becomes part of their lives. Two of the most essential readings on the topic of addiction are “The 10 Most Important Things Known About Addiction” by Doug Sellman and “Injecting Rooms Benefit All, Not Just Drug Users” by Robert Power. This paper makes a reflective summary of these two articles in order to bring out the major arguments of these authors about addiction and its consequences.

One of the most fundamental articles on the question of addiction, Doug Sellman’s “The 10 Most Important Things Known About Addiction” offers a list of ten important things or facts about addiction. These ten essential facts about addiction have emerged over the last three or four decades and an understanding of these important things will fundamentally help the people in addiction treatment as well as the general public. Bringing together a body of knowledge across multiple domains, Sellman lists down the most essential facts about addiction. Thus, the author maintains that addiction is basically about obsessive behavior and that compulsive drug-seeking is initiated outside of consciousness. (Sellman, 6) He goes on to argue that about fifty percent of addiction is genetic and complexity abounds, and people with addictions are most vulnerable to other psychiatric problems as well. (Sellman, 6) To the author, “addiction is a chronic relapsing disorder in the majority of people who present for help; different psychotherapies appear to produce similar treatment outcomes; ‘come back when you’re motivated’ is no longer an acceptable therapeutic response; the more individualized and broad-based the treatment a person with addiction receives, the better the outcome; epiphanies are hard to manufacture; and change takes time.” (Sellman, 6) It is, therefore, essential to use the knowledge already known to make progress in the treatment of addiction. Therefore, Doug Sellman’s arguments in the article are consistent with my view about the attempt to use the already available knowledge about addiction rather than trying to get a first-hand experience of it.

“Injecting Rooms Benefit All, Not Just Drug Users” by Robert Power is an important article dealing with the use of the various facilities available in injecting rooms in Sydney, Australia. In his article, Robert Power claims that injection rooms in Sydney, Australia help people have clean shots, give them an environment that is nice rather than being on the streets and even save people’s lives. It is now a decade since supervised injecting places were last seriously considered as an option for Victoria and it is high time to make a considered and dispassionate review of this harm-reduction option. “The evidence points to three main conclusions: the facilities reap benefits for individual and public health; they render improvements in public amenity and community well-being; and they need to be part of a broader harm reduction response.” (Power) As the author purports, the facilities in injecting rooms in Sydney, Australia attract the most marginalized and stigmatized drug users and they have great use as harm reduction units for the drug addicts. It is important to recognize that supervised injecting rooms serve as vital harm reduction services and it will be useful in preventing the spread of drug addiction.

In a reflective exploration of the two articles, i.e. those by Doug Sellman and Robert Power, it becomes evident that both authors have a vital point to make. Significantly, both Doug Sellman and Robert Power deal with vital issues that affect society as a whole and their arguments give rise to a new understanding about addiction and drugs. In light of the arguments of these authors, I am highly convinced that women need to understand how vulnerable they are to drug addiction, especially if they are going to get pregnant. The first article makes it evident that one should use the knowledge already known to make progress in the treatment of addiction, while the second article underlies the significance of supervised injecting rooms to reduce the harms of drug consumption. Essentially, in my opinion, the authors’ ideas help drug addicts in Saudi Arabia because these arguments can extremely help the practitioners in the treatment of addiction and the reduction of the harms of addiction.