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Substance abuse is known to be caused by different reasons in different groups of the society. Various societal factors tend to cause variations in the way people abuse various substances, and consequently the way treatment can be administered. For a long time now it has been an assumption that children cannot abuse substances, and for that matter children were thought to be safe from addiction to various drugs.
In order for the correct method to be applied when treating somebody from substance abuse, it is important that the patient be placed in the right client population. People in similar client population exhibit similar characteristic and therefore have more or less the same way of treatment.
In the recent past, we have seen cases where children who were taken to be the safe group, are engaging in various acts of substance abuse and have ended up being addicts of various drugs (Myers & Salt 2007). This group has to have special treatment that befits their age and knowledge.
Therefore based on age, cultural background or sexual orientation, different treatment procedures are applicable to a selected group only. It is therefore important that before administering treatment to a substance abuser, care should be taken to note the age of the patient, maturity, gender, family background and other factors that facilitate substance abuse (Myers & Salt 2007).
Neglected, homeless and abused children have high tendency of addiction to marijuana, drugs and inhalants which they turn to in such for comfort and a way to forget their tribulations.
As a matter of fact, children without proper family upbringing or those who have no families at all tend to join street gangs for self protection and to feel that they belong somewhere. Unfortunately, these gangs are associated with use of various drugs in order to feel they are adults who can take care of their own issues.
Adolescents are the most vulnerable group to drug abuse due to their curiosity of wanting to know what it feels like for one to be free to make personal decisions. This group is in a stage where they want to discover everything that practically takes place in the world, and are susceptible to negative peer pressure (Myers & Salt 2007).
Depression, inability to predict their future, isolation, bad company, dissatisfaction with the kind of life they lead and peer pressure tend to push the youth to substance abuse. The counselors need to differentiate between the youth who are chronic substance abusers, and those who use drugs circumstantially in order to administer proper treatment.
Treating substance abuse among adolescents needs to be specialized to the target group, hence transferring the procedures used when treating adults and trying to apply them to the youth will not work. Causes of substance abuse in youth are different from causes of substance abuse in adults even when the societal settings are the same (Myers & Salt 2007).
Troubled substance abusing youth find outward bound-type programs helpful in controlling their behavior. Being actively involved in activities that occupy the youth’s physical, emotional, mental and social life aspects especially in a far away remote area, go along way in ensuring they have little access to the substances.
It should be noted that this program is not helpful to some group of adolescents due to it is financial demands that are rather high.
To tackle the problem of finance in the outward bound-type programs, project adventure programs reduce the travelling and just create local variations. Incorporating therapeutic procedures and carrying out antidrug campaigns at various sports in which the youth participate has been proved to help in reduction of substance abuse among the youth (Myers & Salt 2007).
These has been made possible due to the fact that adolescents like sports very much as away of relaxing and will mostly behave as group members behave. Though sponsorship of these programs has been a challenge in many states, the local government and the social service agencies have been trying their best in having some of the projects running.
Another program that has proven to be beneficial in treating substance abusing youth, is the combination of motivational enhancement therapy (MET) and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) (Myers & Salt 2007). In cannabis youth treatment (CYT), 5 visual sessions of MET are combined with 3 CBT sessions.
In this case, MET is tailored to make the youth aware that the cost of substance abuse is higher than the benefits associated with the same by using the motivational sheet. On the other hand, CBT sessions are meant to educate the client population on the skills that can facilitate change and make it part of everyday life.
Skills on how to resist the urge of going back, dealing with risky circumstances and supportive social networking are also taught. An advancement of this program has an additional 7 CBT group sessions, where the adolescents are taught how to deal with group conflicts, hopelessness, bad feeling and yearning without use (Myers & Salt 2007).
The duration of this new version of treatment then totals to twelve weeks where development tasks are initiated being one of the major causes of substance abuse among the youth.
Since it has been established that family plays an important role in encouraging or discouraging substance abuse, CYT has incorporated family meetings, visits with therapeutic motives and parent education in their system and encouragement of self-help groups to boost treatment attendance.
It might be rather difficult to maintain adolescents in a therapeutic facility which is in a community setting if the facility is in form of a rehabilitation clinic, but if learning is given major consideration, then the probability of them attending is high (Myers & Salt 2007).
Youths can be taken to therapeutic boarding schools, where holistic education and responsibility of one’s actions are stressed in the absence of rehabilitators and physicians.
Drug abuse is more pronounced among the middle aged citizens who may due to change in their skin, increased responsibilities, disappointments of life or loss of friends lead them into depression and loss of self esteem (Myers & Salt 2007).
Dealing with this group in isolation is a more complex problem, since there is no clear cut distinction between the middle aged citizens and the elderly who share a lot of characteristics hence they are grouped together in most cases.
It is important for counselors to separate the person who recently joined drinking or the one who is new in drugs, and along life addict to whom substance abuse has become a way of life. The earlier person is just about to withdraw from the society and has less other co-occurring disorders as compared to a long term addict.
The elderly people have a tendency of taking drugs without proper prescriptions from medical officers and in some cases overdosing themselves.
It is paramount therefore, to carry out differentiation during assessment to separate those who abuse alcohol or those who use illicit drugs from those who use over the counter drugs (Myers & Salt 2007).
Another important point to note is that with age the body becomes unable to detoxify or reduce the rate of detoxification of substances; hence high levels of toxic substances are found in their bodies and brain. Treating the elderly can sometimes proof to be a challenging task, given that elderly people mostly do not keep track of the medication prescribed to them which sometimes may lead multi-prescriptions.
Most of the conditions that face the elderly are sometimes due to old age and not as a result of substance abuse as they may look from the onset. Aging people often feel loss of identity when they retire from their various jobs, and get stressed due to what looks like loss of social class when they no longer go out with work friends (Myers & Salt 2007).
At the end of their active time, when they are forced to go home and their monthly income stopped, the elderly become troubled due to the fact that they now have to depend on others especially their children a thing they were not used to. This coupled with the changes in the body functioning systems that accompany aging lead to depression and various body discomforts.
Therefore, when dealing with the aging, care should be taken to establish the causes of various disorders that are present in their situation. It is important to distinguish whether the loss of memory in the aging is due to alcohol or due to age. This category of people is sensitive to self esteem making them feel drained physically, emotionally and socially.
As a result, any counselor needs to be meticulous with how the subject is tackled during the treatment sessions. Though the point of alcohol and sedative misuse needs to be addressed directly, the issue of substance abuse must be handled with caution since it touches on their self esteem.
The speed and retention ability reduce with age therefore, unnecessary background noise will further deter communication during therapeutic sessions (Myers & Salt 2007). Enough breaks are also necessary when changing topics, to allow them to relax their mind for the following sessions.
Mockery will only serve to send these people away since they are aware of cognitive issues and regard them highly. They feel more comfortable if simple language is used and they are allowed to seek for clarification incase they did not grasp any point.
Since this age group comprises of individuals who have been exposed to substances for a relatively long period, therapeutic community programs play a very vital role.
The involvement of those people who are recovering in these programs help in initiating behavioral change in patients, while changing their attitudes and perceptions about possibility of recovering from substance use (Myers & Salt 2007). These programs also help in facilitating the resocialization of the patient back to a drug free environment by rebuilding their confidence and restoring self esteem.
Co-occurring diseases should also be treated concurrently, since symptoms of the disorder will make the patient think there was no improvement even after stopping the use substances. Though behavioral therapy is essential in ensuring stoppage of substance abuse, some cases require medication to detoxify the body system.
It is paramount to point out also that, some individual cases are chronic and require extensive medical care, therefore the patients should be admitted into rehabilitation centers were professionals can be able to monitor them closely (Myers & Salt 2007). Bringing the whole family into the picture is also quite important in ensuring that those who recover from substance abuse are give enough support so that they do not fall back.
Substance abuse is asocial problem hence great care should to be accorded when tackling the issue. Some the individuals who are addicted to drugs may not be willing to voluntarily attend counseling sessions, compelling the authorities to force them into rehabilitation centers. Though efforts are put towards reducing cases of substance abuse funding is a problem, especially for social amenities involved, hence deterring further actions.
Reference
Myers, L. P. & Salt, R. N. (2007). Becoming an Addictions Counselor: A Comprehensive text. Sudbury: Jones & Bartlett.
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