Critical Analysis Misuse of Alcohol and Illicit Drugs - Term Paper Example

A major proportion of the disease burden and deaths for young people in developed nations is attributable to misuse of alcohol and illicit drugs. Patterns of substance use established in adolescence are quite stable and predict chronic patterns of use, mortality, and morbidity later in life. We integrated findings of systematic reviews to summarise evidence for interventions aimed at prevention and reduction of harms related to adolescent substance use. Evidence of efficacy was available for developmental prevention interventions that aim to prevent onset of harmful patterns in settings such as vulnerable families, schools, and communities, and universal strategies to reduce attractiveness of substance use. Regulatory interventions aim to increase perceived costs and reduce availability and accessibility of substances. Increasing price, restricting settings of use, and raising legal purchase age are effective in reducing use of alcohol and tobacco and related harms. Screening and brief intervention are efficacious, but efficacy of a range of treatment approaches has not been reliably established. Harm-reduction interventions are effective in young people involved in risky and injecting substance use. One of America’s leading health and social problems is the abuse of addictive substances, specifically drugs and alcohol. In the late 1800s, during the industrial revolution, the medical profession began to recognize the effects of alcohol abuse on factory workers and on pregnant women and their unborn children. Malnutrition, brain damage, liver disease, fetal alcohol syndrome and child abuse were linked to the habitual use of alcohol. The effects of substance abuse are widespread. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, alcohol is involved in more than half of all child abuse cases, rapes, traffic deaths, felonies, fire fatalities and homicides and a third of all suicides. Conservative estimates indicate that the problem of alcoholism and drug addiction exists in four to thirteen percent of the population, with those affected coming from every economic, educational, and age level and from every race and gender. Furthermore, each substance abuser directly affects at least four to six other individuals, whether a spouse, children, or innocent victim of an accident or crime. Substance abuse plays a major role in accidents resulting in head, hand, and spinal cord injury, and in other impairments typically requiring rehabilitation services. All too often, the substance abuse is left untreated in these individuals, who, tragically, frequently reinjure themselves or further endanger their health by continuing to abuse substances after their injuries. The tremendous increase and awareness regarding the scope and severity of alcohol and drug abuse in the last twenty years has spurred increased scientific study of effective approaches to substance abuse treatment. No longer focusing on the treatment of specific substances, chemical dependency treatment is now a generic or umbrella term that represents a marriage between the alcoholism and drug treatment fields. Drug and alcohol abuse is defined as use that has been harmful or is potentially harmful to the extent that the substance use negatively affects one or more important areas of the user’s life for at least one month. There is continued use of the substance despite awareness that it is causing a problem or making an existing problem worse. There also may be repeated use in situations where it is known to be physically hazardous. The substance use is excessive and harmful but has not yet reached the dependence state. Substance dependence is commonly referred to as drug addiction, and often the terms are used interchangeably. The diagnosis of alcohol or substance dependence is more severe that that of substance abuse. Substance dependency is the chronic, excessive use of a substance that is harmful to the individual. Addiction is characterized by physical tolerance, psychological dependency, deterioration and overall functioning, and a marked loss of control over the frequency and amounts of substance used. Just as for children, the family is important to the adolescent. Although the teenager maybe establishing a self identity that is autonomous from the family, it is still a pertinent shaper of values and interests and represents the primary foundation from which the adolescent can build an individual identity. Just as play is the overall occupation of childhood and individual play activities are formative, the overall occupation of adolescence is to form an identity that includes work as well as play or leisure, toward which occasional and leisure activities are formative. Therefore, when working with an adolescent client, the treatment process must include his or her peers. Since the essential developmental process occurring for these age group is establishing independence and an autonomous identity, the adolescent often relies heavily on peers. For adolescents as well as younger children, care must be taken to choose modalities appropriate for the client’s developmental age. Games are generally appropriate for older children, as they are for adolescents, due to their externally imposed parameters and rules and to the opportunity for competition and achieving a goal other than the game itself. One activity that is extremely useful in working with adolescents (particularly when developing social and relational skills, cognitive reasoning and self-awareness) is team building, which includes experiential activities such as ropes course. While these programs vary, the basic premise is to have the group find itself faced with what seems an impossible task initially and then successfully mobilize as a team to accomplish the presented task. This modality is excellent in developing a young group of peers into a team whose members support and care for each other and recognize the value of cooperation. The experience enhances individual strengths and weaknesses, develops leadership roles, and encourages creative, group problem solving. The key to the utilization of team building involves activity analysis and facilitator training. Many elements of the challenging tasks may need to be adapted to meet the needs of the group, which means activity analysis is essential. Interventions for adolescents on the developmental tasks of establishing self-identity and involves issues of the peer group and the family using various groups based on occupational performance and components. REFERENCE: Brodey BB; McMullin D; Winters KC; Rosen CS; Downing DR; Koble JM. Adolescent substance use assessment in a primary care setting. American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse 33(3): 447-454, 2007. Read More