Substance abuse and Co-Occurring Disorders

Executive Summary

The paper discuss about the substance abuse and Co-Occurring Disorders. However, it is very difficult to decide which problem came first. If we look at the historical background of one person, we find that experience anxiety of childhood trauma turns into drug and develops addiction. Substance abuse is defined as an excessive use of substances or large enough to affect the relationship of a person with his family and his friends, his ability to work study or fulfill family obligations or to cause legal problems or dangerous behavior. The term co-occurring disorders means that the person/young adult has one or more disorders relating to the use of alcohol and/or other drugs of abuse as well as one or more mental disorders. The paper also highlights the fact that the abuse and dependence disorders are the most common substance in both sexes and they affect nearly 5% of women.

Substance abuse and Co-Occurring Disorders

Introduction

Substance abuse involves the overuse of, dependency on, and/or addiction to non-food items, natural or synthetic that changes an individual's body and/or mind because of their chemical composition. In general, the drugs of alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine tend to be the most abused substances that often require regimented treatment approaches for successful cessation. Although surveys have demonstrated that substance abuse has been decreasing since the early 2000s in the United States, it still remains a problematic behavior that affects youth, families, employers, co-workers, schools, and communities. Prevention and intervention programs have attempted to address the issue of substance abuse using a variety of methods across several ecological levels, such as the individual, the family, the school, and the community. Whereas some programs, such as Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) and other community antidrug programs operate mostly to prevent initial drug use, these are not the focus of this entry. Rather, the examples that follow highlight the commonly used approaches for treating persons already addicted to drugs (Whitmore & Crowley, 2007).

Significance of the Study

As alcohol and drug use has severe costs and safety consequences to society the positive social change aspects of this study will impact all the organizations throughout the industry that face employee substance abuse; the employees and their family members who are dealing with substance abuse related disorders, as well as the medical community treating such patients. As millions of Americans are affected by substance abuse related disorders the positive social change aspects of this study will extend to all ethnic groups, educational backgrounds; salary ranges; geographical areas across the Industrial nation.

Discussion and Analysis

According to Smith & Miller (2001), Substance abuse has been prevailing in the American Society since many decades. Unfortunately, many programs have been organized but sadly nothing has been controlled or improved as yet. However, the debate whether drugs should be legalized or not is still argued by many.

The substances, which are abused, include different forms of drugs like Marijuana, Heroin, Cocaine, Methamphetamines, and Club drugs. In addition to this, alcohol is also abused as a ...