THEREPY THURSDAY THOUGHTS

 

ENLIGHTENING TOWARD A BETTER  PLACE

With all the types of addictions these days there are vast amounts of resources to help get people help with thier diseases.The most notable and widely known for success in the United States is the Alcoholics Anonymous program. This is the mother ship for other programs that use the twelve step program for various other disease (narcotics,marijuana, nicotine, prescription/over the counter drugs, gambling, cocaine, sex, over-eating) which have thier own concepts of doing these steps.


I can attest to the idea that addictions are but a side effect in most cases from previous personnel expieriences, physical/mental trauma, or some family history of addiction in some form or other. The term "addiction" is very vague as noted before. This requires varied types of treatment, almost on a individual basis, but with times the way they are today a cookie cutter process is the norm.

The treatment of any addiction will include some sort of trauma in our childhood or early in our youth that plays a part in our developmet to deal with situations. In other cases it is a genetics and or environmental interplay.This is noted in "Scared Sick" where it states "Still, we cannot blame genes alone for addiction. As in heart disease, obesity, and other disease, "genes merely load the gun," researchers note, "while environment pulls the trigger,"Trauma, abuse and neglect in childhood are known to be associated with environments that contribute to drug abuse and addictions of all kinds, but some people never the less manage to avoid addiction. In our latter years some may have expierienced a traumatic event causing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), abandonement, adoption, death of a love one, physical,mental, sexual, and emotional abuse.




 Additional correlations between early abuse and mental health include the following: Dissociation interferes with the normal learning and with commonsense judgement, especially in relationships.The most surprising finding was children who experienced both verbal abuse and witnessed domestic violence were even more likely to suffer from dissociation than children who had been sexually abused. Anxiety, depression and anger/hostility:The effect of this toxic combination is equivalent to the effect of experiencing physical, emotional and sexual abuse combined. Substance abuse: Early maltreatment is clearly implicated in the later development of substance abuse and is also linked to depression and anger/hostility. In summary, the destructive impact of domestic violence on health does not simply appear out of the blue in adulthood.


For many people, addiction is a chronic, recurring problem, and it costs to society are emormeous. It has been estimated that state ans federal governments in the United States spend more than $15 billion per year, and insurers at least another $5 billion per year, on substance abuse treatment services for some four million people. this amount is likely to increase sharply with the recent mental health parity law, scheduled to take effect in 2010. For the first time federal law will require addiction treatment under a statute mandating that insurers cover mental and physical ailments equally. Today many clinics across the country have lengthy waiting lists, and researchers estimate that some twenty million Americans who could benefit from treatment are not getting it. the costs in human suffering, family disintegration, and lost of productivity are staggering. The lingering questions remain, What is effective treatment? How can it best be administered?
 






Maté, Gabor. In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic, 2010. Print.

AD-101 required reading, insightful on canadian physhician helping a communiity with the disease of addiction.

 "University Bound Network Sites." Psychology Degrees. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 July 2013.

This pie shows the vast area that counselling positions are available and how great the need is in the field.

"Cope with Life." Helping Introverts Learn How to Obstacles. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 July 2013.
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