Substance Abuse: Introduction, Prevention & Treatment

Table of Contents

What is Substance Abuse?

According to WHO, substance abuse refers to the harmful or hazardous use of psychoactive substances, including alcohol and illicit drugs.
Substance abuse means taking drugs that are illegal.
Additionally, substance abuse also means taking alcohol, prescription medicine, and other legal substances too much or in the wrong way.
Substance abuse refers to the conditions associated with the consumption of mind- and behavior-altering substances that have negative behavioral and health outcomes.
Social, political and legal responses to substance abuse (consumption of alcohol and illicit drugs) make substance abuse one of the major problems of public health.

Global Facts on Substance Abuse (WHO, 2020):

The harmful use of alcohol results in 3.3 million deaths each year.
On average every person in the world aged 15 years or older drinks 6.2 litres of pure alcohol per year.
Less than half the population (38.3%) actually drinks alcohol, this means that those who do drink consume on average 17 litres of pure alcohol annually.
Some 31 million persons have drug use disorders.
Almost 11 million people inject drugs, of which 1.3 million are living with HIV, 5.5 million with hepatitis C, and 1 million with both HIV and hepatitis C.

Additional Facts:

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), about 21.5 million Americans ages 12 and older were categorized with a substance use disorder in 2014. Of those, 2.6 million had complications with equally alcohol and drugs, 4.5 million had difficulties with drugs but not alcohol, and 14.4 million had problems with alcohol merely.

Problems Related to Substance Abuse:

Substance abuse creates adverse impact on individuals, families, and communities. The major problems related to substance abuse are:

Teenage pregnancy
Human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS)
Other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)
Domestic violence
Child abuse
Motor vehicle crashes
Physical fights
Crime
Homicide
Suicide etc.

Relationship between Mental Health and Substance Abuse:

Substance abuse and mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety are closely linked, although one doesn’t necessarily directly cause the other.
Substance use illnesses arise when an individual recurrently uses alcohol or drugs. This recurrent use can lead to health complications, relationship suffering, injury, and ill health.
For those who struggle with substance use, mental illness can also be an issue.
Substance abuse can worsen the symptoms of mental health. It can sharply increase symptoms of mental illness or even trigger new symptoms.
According to SAMHSA, in 2014, 7.9 million adults struggled with both substance use and mental illness. In some circumstances, side effects of drugs can cause mental illness symptoms.
Let us say, alcohol itself is a drug and can worsen pre-existing depression or even permits symptoms for the first time.
Additionally, alcohol and further drugs can lead an individual to do or say things they possibly will later regret, affecting stressed relationships, trouble at work, and health difficulties. The effects of these occurrences can promote anxiety, depression, and other mental diseases.
In other cases, those who previously struggled with mental disease frequently attempt to self-medicate with alcohol and drugs.
Substance use may shortly ease agony from mental illness. Nevertheless, lacking specialized treatment, self-medication can lead to additional problems and possible dependence.

What are the Preventive Measures for Substance Abuse?

Medical prescription and the claim of specific regulations for the manufacture and circulation of medical drugs and their precursors.
Medical training has a crucial role to play in reducing the availability of prescribed substances for abuse
Demand reduction through special programs directed to transform those factors, which make individuals vulnerable to substance experimentation, constant use, and addiction, in addition to encourage protective factors in the individual and the surroundings.
The Incorporated strategy of supply and demand reduction
Early intermediation with individuals that have tested with substances but are not relentlessly reliant and may possibly thus be “reinstructed” through education intermediations, in addition to the treatment of dependency, relapse avoidance, and social rehabilitation.

What are the Treatment Measures for Substance Abuse?

Various treatment measures for substance abuse are:

Behavior psychotherapy
Medication
Detoxification
Managing of withdrawal symptoms
Medical devices and applications are used to treat withdrawal symptoms or deliver skills training
Evaluation and cure for co-occurring mental health problems such as depression and anxiety
Long-term follow-up to prevent relapse

Among these treatment measures, behavioral therapy deserves more attention and focus because of its high effectiveness and wide usefulness.

Importance of Behavioral therapies in Substance Abuse:

Behavioral therapy helps patients to:

Modify their disobedience and conducts related to substance use
Progress in healthy life skills
Carry on with other procedures of treatment, such as medication
Patients can take delivery of treatment in many different sceneries with several attitudes.

Types of Behavioral therapy/treatment:

1. The Outpatient behavioral treatment:

Outpatient behavioral therapy contains an extensive range of curriculums for patients who visit a behavioral health therapist on an ordered schedule. Various types of outpatient behavioral treatment includes:

Cognitive-behavioral therapy: which helps patients identify, evade, and handle the conditions in which they are most expected to use drugs
Multidimensional family therapy: established for adolescents with drug abuse difficulties along with their families which addresses a variety of impacts on their drug abuse forms and is planned to recover generally family working
Motivational interviewing: which makes the most of people’s willingness to transform their behavior and go into treatment
Motivational incentives (contingency management): which uses optimistic corroboration to inspire self-restraint from drugs

2. Inpatient or residential treatment:

Inpatient therapy/treatment can also be very effective, especially for those with more severe problems (including co-occurring disorders). Various types of inpatient treatment includes:

Therapeutic communities: which are highly arranged programs in which patients remain at a home, normally for 6 to 12 months. The entire community, counting treatment team and those in recovery act as key mediators of change, prompting the patient’s attitudes, understanding, and behaviors associated with drug use.
Shorter-term residential treatment: which typically emphases on cleansing along with providing early concentrated counseling and training for treatment in a community-based setting.

Recovery housing: which delivers supervised, short-term accommodation for patients, often resulting in other types of inpatient or domestic treatment.