Programs For Narcotics Anonymous Essay
There are a lot of temptations, all individuals are constantly coping with, in their lives. Unfortunately not all people are strong enough to resist the temptation to try out narcotics, as most of them are absolutely sure that one time will not make them addicted. When they try it for the second and third time, they are sure that they will be able to stop any moment, they would want to. When they feel that they can not stop, they don’t have the chance to think about it any more, as the only thing, which is interesting for them, is where to get the new dose. Then the moment comes, when either an individual, or his close people want to do something to stop drugs abuse and they start considering all possibilities to save the addicted person. There are various approaches nowadays, including psychological treatment, medications and group support. Certainly each individual has the right to choose, what is more effective for him, however, in most cases, addicted people loose their possibility to think logically and clearly and are lost between their reality of narcotics and usual reality, where people live, love, work, have sports and so on. One of the worst things is probably the feeling of loneliness, as addicted people are convinced that not a single of their relatives of friends is able to fully understand their feelings and problems, as they have never been in such a situation. In such situations groups are really helpful, as they provide the possibility for addicted or formal addicted individuals to find a place, where there is support and help for such people, where everybody knows exactly about their problems and is ready to discuss them openly; NA groups help to avoid the mentioned feeling of social isolation, and hopelessness, which are the worst feelings for possible recovery from addiction and returning to normal life.Programs For Narcotics Anonymous Essay
This is evident that motivation and support are the major factors, which help people in all difficult situations, including those, when they are to overcome such serious problems, as addiction and related health problems. Narcotics Anonymous is considered to be one of the most successful self-help groups for individuals, who experience problems with addiction and which is used for treatment and recovery. In reality there are a lot of problems, which could be treated with the help of group therapies.
Narcotics Anonymous (NA) is known for the unique program, consisting of the 12 steps, the main aim of which is to return each member of the group to his usual social life. These twelve recovery steps help to overcome the situations of powerlessness and helplessness, which are experienced by all addicted individuals. The participants struggle for achieving of the so-called “higher power”, which could be interpreted in the way, which is needed for each of them. The central point of the twelve step program is the choice of a sponsor; a sponsor is a person, who used to abuse drugs, but for some longer period of time remains sober and is able to provide his support to other people, who need it urgently because of the same reason. All the group meetings are organized by former addicted people. They are always regular and they are taking place in different countries all over the world, at different moments of time. Members of the groups have the choice to attend those meetings, they would like to, all of them are held once per week. Programs For Narcotics Anonymous Essay
In order to compare the application of the twelve step program and group therapies in general to other approaches to treatment of addicted individuals, it is necessary to consider all of them. Generally the treatment for substance use disorders should include several important components:
- “Individual and group counseling
- Inpatient and residential treatment
- Intensive outpatient treatment
- Partial hospital programs
- Case or care management
- Medication
- Recovery support services
- Peer supports” (White, 2010, p. 12).
If an individual needs person accessing treatment, it doesn’t mean that each of these components needs to be applied, however the role of each could not be underestimated. All these systems are in use in community and every single part of the community is able to provide the necessary support in recover from terrible disorders.
Counseling is one of the wide spread approaches and could be applied to an individual, as well as a group of individuals. Individual counseling is usually used in the cases, when it is urgently needed to reduce or stop the use of the substance, adhere to a recovery plan, involve family or friends and reach professional and educational results. Group counseling is applied in case, when there is a need to reinforce the individual counseling for guaranteed recovery. Counselors are to work out various treatment therapies, some of them are:Programs For Narcotics Anonymous Essay
- Cognitive-behavioral therapy, which is in use, when it is necessary to make individuals stop and reconsider the negative patterns of behavior and ways of thinking. For example it helps to make an individual aware of the stressful situations, he is facing, analyze the feelings, which push to using substance, in other words there is a way to realize those situations and find different ways of reacting to them without substance abuse.
- – Contingency management is usually used as a method of supporting of positive results and behavior, making them completely substitute the former negative experiences and associations.
- It was already mentioned that the role of motivation should never be underestimated in case with drugs addiction. Motivational enhancement therapy is used to help people to develop their own motivations, which would be strong enough to recover and remain distanced from substances.
- 12 step facilitation therapy includes involvement of the individuals into the 12 step program, for example Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous.
Sometimes there is a need to adjust the type of counseling to specific population. For example it is important to consider the age of the participants, as younger people would most luckily need different treatment services in comparison to older individuals. Involvement of their families is one of the key components in most cases. “Two models for youth that are often used in combination and have been supported by SAMHSA grants are the Adolescent Community Reinforcement Approach (ACRA) and Assertive Continuing Care (ACC). ACRA uses defined procedures to build skills and support engagement in positive activities. ACC provides intensive follow up and home based services to prevent relapse and is delivered by a team of professionals.” (White, 2010, p. 16).Programs For Narcotics Anonymous Essay
Inpatient or residential sessions are usually parts of the treatment process. It is made with consideration of the specialty substance use disorder treatment facilities, depending on behavioral focusing or in specially created units of some hospitals. Not often, but still there are cases, when long-term treatment with residence is needed. Then patients need to stay for about half a year to twelve months at specially organized residences with highly structural setting, which are needed for serious changing of the individuals’ behavior. Shorter term residential treatment is more often used and a lot of attention is paid there to the process of detoxification (in medicine this process is called medically managed withdrawal). Intensive initial treatment is also included into the most of the short-term programs, having the aim of returning of an individual to his normal social life and settings. “An alternative to inpatient or residential treatment is partial hospitalization or intensive outpatient treatment. These programs have people attend very intensive and regular treatment sessions multiple times a week early in their treatment for an initial period. After completing partial hospitalization or intensive outpatient treatment, individuals often step down into regular outpatient treatment which meets less frequently and for fewer hours per week to help sustain their recovery.” (White, 2010, p. 18).
Medications are also applied in cases of treating such disorders. Usually it is known under the name Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT). This is a kind of a model, when medication is combined with behavioral therapies for more stable and positive effect. Medications are used for reduction of the craving or some other symptoms, which are related to withdrawal from a substance via occupying of the brain receptors, which were previously associated with using substance.
The NA approach, including the twelve steps program, was thoroughly studied by the researchers. First of all affiliation of the members of those groups was studied, how they attended and to what extent they were involved into the activities, which were worked for twelve step program. According to the results of the research “Continuous 12-Step attendance (weekly or more frequent) over 3 years predicted sustained abstinence over three years. Across recovery stages, individuals were 4.1 to 8.6 times more likely to achieve sustained abstinence by continuous 12-Step meeting attendance and involvement.” (Crape, Latkin, Laris, Knowlton, 2002, p. 293). An interesting fact was that this treatment’s results were related to gender, thus women revealed the tendency to sustain abstinence over three years.Programs For Narcotics Anonymous Essay The involvement into the twelve step program included finding a sponsor, doing all the tasks and suggested services, reading the literature, devoted to the corresponding topics, contacting other members of the program during their group meetings and outside those meetings. Sometimes there were some differences for men and for women, as for example for men only becoming a sponsor could be a prediction for sustained abstinence for more than three years. “Rates of attrition from AA and NA were examined. Among those who started NA and AA attendance, the majority (85% and 91%, respectively) stopped NA and AA attendance for a month or longer. Data support the idea that the 12-Step career, like the treatment career, consists of multiple interrupted episodes of participation. In general, 12-Step attendance and involvement decrease over time.” (Crape, Latkin, Laris, Knowlton, 2002, p. 296).
Special attention was paid to consideration of the effectiveness of the NA program for adolescents. On the one hand this is a widely used practice to involve adolescents into the twelve step program, however not always the results are properly studied. Such aspects as “(1) describing rates and predictors of participation in AA/NA over 8 years following inpatient treatment, (2) examining the relationship between early and ongoing AA/NA participation and substance use outcomes, and (3) exploring dose-response thresholds of AA/NA attendance and outcome” are important for making conclusions about application of NA program for younger people. (Kelly, Myers, 2007, p. 260).
Viewing of wholeness, as one of the main aims, is not less important than achievement of health and stable condition of the individuals. The fact is that most sciences are able to treat objects only in case they break them into pieces. However, in the situation with psychological and physical addictions, it is not possible to treat such notions as love, devotion, beauty with changing of their nature. There are still things, which could not be counted and thus the process of healing, which consists of numerous elements, could either not be seen without wholeness. Programs For Narcotics Anonymous Essay
Overall, drug addiction is one of the most serious modern problems for any society of any country; there are a lot of individuals of various age, racial and ethnic groups, who tend to develop their addiction and want to get rid of it afterwards. There have been a lot of various approaches for support and treatment of these individuals worked out, including behavioral therapies, medication, twelve step NA programs and so on. Some of them are really successful and bring positive results, still there is a lot of space for further research and innovations in this sphere. NA group meetings are different from substance abuse treatment, because they are able to involve all the multiple components, creating the picture of wholeness, which is more advantageous for the participants.Programs For Narcotics Anonymous Essay