Alcohol and Drug Abuse Personal Assessment

Alcohol and drug abuse is one of the major problems in today's society that continues to affect many young people. I have witnessed many young people about my age trying alcohol and drug abuse for various reasons including peer pressure. Some of these people try the substances for a short period of time and stop while others are engaged in a long-term struggle of substance abuse that sometimes last for a lifetime. Young people usually attempt to abuse different kinds of substances such as cigarettes, marijuana, alcohol, prescription and over-the-counter drugs, and household chemicals or inhalants. Alcohol and drug abuse has also affected some of my family members and generated considerable negative impacts and health outcomes.

Personal Impact of Substance Abuse

Generally, substance abuse has made a personal impact on me because of the experience of my sister whose struggle with alcohol and drugs was brought by peer pressure. My sister was 10 years old when she started abusing alcohol and other drugs. This problem started after she joined a local school where her best friend was an addict. Her friend's addiction was influenced by the fact that the parents constantly abused drugs and got her into it. As a result of their friendship, my sister got into drugs and has struggled to overcome addiction despite recognizing the negative impacts of this problem. The addiction problem started by taking pills that she was given by the friend who got them from her mother. She started using these pills consistently, especially while on her way home after school. This developed into an addiction where she would take a bunch of pills, drink a lot of alcohol, and even smoke marijuana.

While several attempts have been made to help deal with the addiction, these efforts have not yielded positive results since the situation is gradually become worse over time. My sister's addiction problem has been compounded by her rebellion and stubbornness against all authority figures including parents and teachers. Currently, she cannot tolerate listening to any of us and is constantly drunk or high on drugs. From my analysis, she has become dependent on alcohol and drugs for survival to an extent she seemingly cannot do without them. Moreover, she would go to any extent including stealing in order to get the money for buying alcohol and other drugs. Therefore, she needs help to recover from addiction and start her life afresh while restoring the broken relationships with family members.

This experience has created a desire for me to conduct a research on the issue of alcohol and drug abuse. The desire to research on this topic has also been influenced by other experiences I've witnessed among my schoolmates and some of my friends. One of my schoolmates who are currently recovering from the addiction was affected by this problem even before he had a choice. His parents were drug addicts and divorced when he was 9 years because problems brought by their increased substance abuse. The divorce had significant impacts on him and acted as a major factor that prompted him to get into drugs by age 12. He stated that alcohol and drugs became a companion through which he could overcome the pain and suffering from his parents' divorce. While he started the recovery process before he became totally dependent on substances, these drugs affected his health, academics, and life in general. As a result of the substance abuse, he also became a sex addict, which was accompanied by some sexually transmitted diseases.

The other instance that made alcohol and drug abuse a topic of interest is the case of a friend whose life has completely deteriorated because of addiction. She has been admitted to three different drug addiction recovery programs at different times but escaped and relapsed to substance abuse. Her addiction with alcohol and drug abuse started after she was raped after attending a friend's birthday party. At the party, she drunk and woke the following morning from a blackout in which she realized she had been raped. While she did not remember the specific events that led to the rape, the other people in the party helped her recall everything when she woke up from the blackout. This incident affected her to an extent that she got into drugs as a means of overcoming the trauma associated with rape. Since then, she has struggled with substance...

Her family has made several attempts towards her recovery but these efforts have been in vain because she keeps relapsing into alcohol and drugs while her life continues to deteriorate.
These three stories, especially my sister's experience, have made me become interested in conducting a research about alcohol and drug abuse. During this study, I would like to examine whether substance abuse is a social or mental health problem. In essence, do people become addicts as a result of being influenced by social problems or is substance abuse a mental health problem that can only be treated by mental health professionals? The main goal of the research is to understand the main factor resulting in addiction in order to develop appropriate measures that deal with this risk factor in order to promote and ensure successful recovery.

In addition to understanding the nature of addiction to alcohol and drug abuse, the study will also examine its impact on the health and well-being of the addict. This will be utilized towards guiding prevention and recovery efforts, especially in drug treatment programs. The other aspect of the research involves evaluating factors that contribute to successful recovery from addiction whether at home or through a treatment program. This will help in promoting the effectiveness of such initiatives and programs in achieving their goals. Therefore, this research will help in my goal of being a health practitioner who deals with substance abuse in the future.

Investigative Research on the Topic

As previously mentioned, alcohol and drug abuse is one of the major problems in today's society, especially among young people. The prevalence and impact of this problem is evident in the establishment of several drug treatment programs to help in recovery of addicts. Moreover, the severity of the issue is demonstrated in the numerous awareness campaigns that focus on prevention. These programs and initiatives increasingly target young people since they are the most affected population. As evident in the three scenarios discussed in the previous pages, effective prevention and treatment program requires understanding the nature of addiction, its impact, and factors that promote effective treatment and recovery.

Nature of Addiction to Substance Abuse

Given the prevalence of alcohol and drug abuse, especially among teenagers, the nature of addiction to substance abuse has attracted considerable attention. This issue has in turn generated concerns on whether substance abuse is a social problem or a mental health disorder. People who consider it as a social problem argue that addiction is brought by societal influences on an individual and can be overcome through making a simple decision to stop abusing substances. They consider addiction as a simple issue that can be overcome by a simple decision to stop further involvement in drugs. However, recent incidents and statistics have indicated that substance abuse is not social problem that can be easily overcome through a "stop" decision. Even though substance abuse generates numerous social problems, it's not a social problem but a mental health issue.

Addiction to alcohol and drug abuse is defined as chronic, usually relapsing brain disorder that generates compulsive drug seeking and use behavior regardless of awareness of the harmful effects of the behavior on the individual and others ("DrugFacts: Understanding Drug Abuse" par, 3). While the initial decision to take drugs is usually voluntary for many people, brain changes that take place over time interferes with self-control capabilities of the addict by hindering his/her capability to resist intense impulses to seek and use drugs. Generally, alcohol and other drugs generate these brain changes by targeting its reward system through flooding the circuit with dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter in the brain whose main function is to control movement, feelings of pleasure, cognition, motivation, and emotion. Once this system is over-stimulated, it generates euphoric effect sought by individuals who abuse alcohol and drugs and teaches them to repeat behavior ("The Science of Drug Abuse" par, 9). Apart from over-stimulating the brain's reward system, substances affect an individual by imitating the natural chemical messengers of the brain. This happens because drugs interrupt the processes through which nerve cells usually obtain, send, and process information.

However, addition to alcohol and drugs is not a by-product of a single factor since some people become addicts while others do not. An individual's risk for addiction is affected by a mixture of various factors including biology, the environment, and development. With regards to biology, a person's genes combine with environmental factors to determine vulnerability to addiction whereas the environment entails different societal influences that generate addiction. In addition, the development stages of a person combine with genetic and environmental factors to affect vulnerability to…