Alcoholism Treatment: A Model of Abstinence-Oriented Care

1991 ◽  
Vol 4 (6) ◽  
pp. 351-356
Author(s):  
Jeffrey N. Baldwin ◽  
Kathleen A. Kriegler
Keyword(s):  
Support Groups ◽  
Alcoholics Anonymous ◽  
Inpatient Treatment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Disease Treatment ◽  
Initial Intervention ◽  
Recovery Support ◽  
Moral Weakness ◽  
Abstinence From Alcohol

Alcohol is the United States' foremost drug of abuse. Although a significant portion of the population continues to identify alcoholism with moral weakness, society embraces treatment as the primary mode of dealing with this disease. Treatment stressing ongoing abstinence from alcohol is the most universally accepted method of therapy. Following initial intervention and referral, treatment of the alcoholic includes detoxification; intensive early treatment, using either outpatient or inpatient treatment settings; and long-term support for recovery. Aftercare programs often require continuing attendance at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, recovery support groups, and psychotherapy. In addition, recovering individuals may receive continued health care supervision from a physician knowledgeable about alcoholism. Family therapy is stressed as a component of recovery.

scholarly journals The Twelve Steps and Adolescent Recovery: A Concise Review

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 117822182090439
Author(s):  
Angela J Nash
Keyword(s):  
Substance Use ◽  
Alcoholics Anonymous ◽  
Support Services ◽  
Clinical Decision Making ◽  
Clinical Decision ◽  
Continuing Care ◽  
Concise Review ◽  
Qualitative Work ◽  
Recovery Support

Recovery and long-term remission are the goals of treatment for substance use disorders, yet the majority of treated adolescents never stop using or resume using substances quickly after treatment. Thus, continuing care or recovery support services are common post-treatment recommendations for this group. Almost half of people who resolved significant substance use problems did so through participation in 12-step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous. These recovery support programs are available online and in communities around the world. Yet <2% of these programs’ members are under 21 years old. To help clinicians understand the 12-step explanatory model and facilitate clinical decision making on whether or when to refer individuals to these groups, this article summarizes the 12-step philosophy and practices and provides a concise review of research on adolescents’ involvement in 12-step groups, including qualitative work that illuminates adolescents’ reasons for resisting or engaging in 12-step practices.

Social Influence Processes and Health Outcomes in Alcoholics Anonymous

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Wright
Keyword(s):  
Social Influence ◽  
Health Outcomes ◽  
Alcoholics Anonymous ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Treatment Options ◽  
Recovery Process ◽  
Recovering Alcoholics ◽  
Important Health ◽  
Abstinence From Alcohol

Social influence processes play an important role in the recovery process for alcoholics who affiliate with Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Group norms at AA emphasize the sharing of stories about past difficulties with alcohol, the circumstances that led a person to join AA, and how life has changed since achieving sobriety. These narratives serve to increase collective identity among AA members via shared experiences and to reinforce AA ideology. In discussions and interpersonal interactions at AA meetings, AA ideology is also communicated and reinforced through AA literature and the discussion of central tenets, such as the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, the idea that alcoholism is a progressive disease, and the need to be active in one’s sobriety. Moreover, AA meetings provide an opportunity for recovering alcoholics to find others who share similar experiences, an opportunity for greater social comparisons to other alcoholics than are typically available in primary social networks, and group-suggested role obligations that influence commitment to AA and long-term sobriety. These social influence processes have been linked to important health outcomes, including longer abstinence from alcohol use than with other treatment options, reduced stigma associated with alcoholism, reduced stress/depression, increased self-efficacy, and the acquisition of coping skills that are important to the recovery process.

The Remains of the Movement: The Role of Legal Support Networks in Leaving Violence While Sustaining Movement Identity

2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gilda Zwerman ◽  
Patricia Steinhoff
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Support Groups ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
The United States ◽  
Support Networks ◽  
Support Network ◽  
Defense Committees

This article examines disengagement from political violence and the persistence of a movement identity as concurrent and interrelated processes. Our inquiry is based on long-term qualitative data on 90 individuals associated with twelve underground organizations in the United States and Japan during the 1970s and 1980s. We find that as armed activists face the challenges of arrest and detention, trial, and imprisonment, the network of trial support groups and defense committees that was central to their capacity to engage in violence at the peak of the protest cycle also facilitates the process of disengaging from violence as the cycle declines. The distinctive characteristics of this network (herein referred to as the legal support network or LSN) permit insurgents to retain a movement identity while disengaging from violent activity. The study contributes to a small but expanding literature on post-recruitment dynamics in marginalized, high-risk social movements as well as to research on disengagement from political violence.

Alcohol Use Disorders and Clinical Management

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Thompson ◽  
Daniel Rohlf ◽  
Joseph Cocozzella
Keyword(s):  
Alcohol Use ◽  
Support Groups ◽  
Alcoholics Anonymous ◽  
Alcohol Use Disorder ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mutual Support ◽  
First Line ◽  
High Prevalence ◽  
Mutual Support Groups ◽  
The Individual

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is the current DSM-5 designation for problematic and pathologic alcohol use. AUDs have a high prevalence in the United States and are commonly treated in psychiatric practice. They are associated with a wide variety of medical and psychiatric comorbidities. Effective treatment depends on tailoring treatment setting, behavioral psychotherapies, and psychotropic interventions to the individual patients. Three medications are Food and Drug Administration approved for the treatment of AUDs: naltrexone, acamprosate, and disulfiram. Several other medications (anticonvulsants and baclofen) have been studied, but their role in treating AUDs is uncertain. Naltrexone and/or acamprosate should be considered first-line medications for patients without contraindications. Disulfiram can be considered a second-line or first-line treatment in patients with appropriate support or those who prefer it. All patients who are diagnosed with AUDs should be referred to mutual support groups (i.e., Alcoholics Anonymous). This review contains 3 figures, 5 tables, and 35 references. Key words: acamprosate, Alcoholics Anonymous, AUDIT, brief interventions, disulfiram, gabapentin, naltrexone, topiramate, 12 step 

scholarly journals Unsettled Times for American Families

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (01) ◽  
pp. 249-257
Author(s):  
Calvin Morrill
Keyword(s):  
Support Groups ◽  
Living Arrangements ◽  
Elder Abuse ◽  
Elderly Care ◽  
The United States ◽  
Legal Mobilization ◽  
Family Responsibility ◽  
Political Demand ◽  
American Families

In Caring for Our Own: Why There Is No Political Demand for New American Social Welfare Rights (2014), Sandra Levitsky reveals how an enduring ideology of family responsibility and a decoupling of social support groups from organized advocacy constrains mass legal mobilization to address long-term elderly care in the United States. This essay argues that American families have entered an unsettled period linked to social inequality, young adult living arrangements, immigration, and institutional shifts related to LGBTQ families, workplace-family conflict, and the criminalization of elder abuse. These changes to the family may create the conditions for questioning the ideology of family responsibility and new possibilities for collective action with potentially contradictory meanings and lines of action, including politicization and legal mobilization.

Speech-Language Pathology in the Peace Corps: Necessity and Sustainability

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-18
Author(s):  
Melissa A. Pierce
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Special Education ◽  
Peace Corps ◽  
People With Disabilities ◽  
Communication Disorders ◽  
The United States ◽  
Speech Language Pathology ◽  
Speech Language Pathologists ◽  
Language Pathology

In countries other than the United States, the study and practice of speech-language pathology is little known or nonexistent. Recognition of professionals in the field is minimal. Speech-language pathologists in countries where speech-language pathology is a widely recognized and respected profession often seek to share their expertise in places where little support is available for individuals with communication disorders. The Peace Corps offers a unique, long-term volunteer opportunity to people with a variety of backgrounds, including speech-language pathologists. Though Peace Corps programs do not specifically focus on speech-language pathology, many are easily adapted to the profession because they support populations of people with disabilities. This article describes how the needs of local children with communication disorders are readily addressed by a Special Education Peace Corps volunteer.

Multidisciplinary Evidence to Treat Bilingual Individuals with Aphasia

2008 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 66-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
José G. Centeno
Keyword(s):  
Stroke Rehabilitation ◽  
Culturally Diverse ◽  
Treatment Strategies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Intervention Strategies ◽  
Steady Increase ◽  
Clinical Procedures ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
Aphasic Clients

Abstract The steady increase in linguistic and cultural diversity in the country, including the number of bilingual speakers, has been predicted to continue. Minorities are expected to be the majority by 2042. Strokes, the third leading cause of death and the leading cause of long-term disability in the U.S., are quite prevalent in racial and ethnic minorities, so population estimates underscore the imperative need to develop valid clinical procedures to serve the predicted increase in linguistically and culturally diverse bilingual adults with aphasia in post-stroke rehabilitation. Bilingualism is a complex phenomenon that interconnects culture, cognition, and language; thus, as aphasia is a social phenomenon, treatment of bilingual aphasic persons would benefit from conceptual frameworks that exploit the culture-cognition-language interaction in ways that maximize both linguistic and communicative improvement leading to social re-adaptation. This paper discusses a multidisciplinary evidence-based approach to develop ecologically-valid treatment strategies for bilingual aphasic individuals. Content aims to spark practitioners' interest to explore conceptually broad intervention strategies beyond strictly linguistic domains that would facilitate linguistic gains, communicative interactions, and social functioning. This paper largely emphasizes Spanish-English individuals in the United States. Practitioners, however, are advised to adapt the proposed principles to the unique backgrounds of other bilingual aphasic clients.

Traumatic Brain Injury: A Trauma Surgeon's Perspective

2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 82-89
Author(s):  
Oscar D. Guillamondegui
Keyword(s):  
Traumatic Brain Injury ◽  
Brain Injury ◽  
Multidisciplinary Approach ◽  
Trauma Team ◽  
The United States ◽  
Long Term Outcomes ◽  
Term Care ◽  
Injured Brain ◽  
The Moment

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a serious epidemic in the United States. It affects patients of all ages, race, and socioeconomic status (SES). The current care of these patients typically manifests after sequelae have been identified after discharge from the hospital, long after the inciting event. The purpose of this article is to introduce the concept of identification and management of the TBI patient from the moment of injury through long-term care as a multidisciplinary approach. By promoting an awareness of the issues that develop around the acutely injured brain and linking them to long-term outcomes, the trauma team can initiate care early to alter the effect on the patient, family, and community. Hopefully, by describing the care afforded at a trauma center and by a multidisciplinary team, we can bring a better understanding to the armamentarium of methods utilized to treat the difficult population of TBI patients.

Patients considered in need of new long-term compulsory inpatient treatment

2011 ◽  
Vol 38 (S 01) ◽  
Author(s):  
R van den Brink ◽  
G Kranenburg ◽  
W Mulder ◽  
D Wiersma
Keyword(s):  
Inpatient Treatment

Mafias on the Move

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federico Varese
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Organized Crime ◽  
The United States ◽  
The West ◽  
Market Expansion ◽  
The North ◽  
Economic Transformations ◽  
At Will

Organized crime is spreading like a global virus as mobs take advantage of open borders to establish local franchises at will. That at least is the fear, inspired by stories of Russian mobsters in New York, Chinese triads in London, and Italian mafias throughout the West. As this book explains, the truth is more complicated. The author has spent years researching mafia groups in Italy, Russia, the United States, and China, and argues that mafiosi often find themselves abroad against their will, rather than through a strategic plan to colonize new territories. Once there, they do not always succeed in establishing themselves. The book spells out the conditions that lead to their long-term success, namely sudden market expansion that is neither exploited by local rivals nor blocked by authorities. Ultimately the inability of the state to govern economic transformations gives mafias their opportunity. In a series of matched comparisons, the book charts the attempts of the Calabrese 'Ndrangheta to move to the north of Italy, and shows how the Sicilian mafia expanded to early twentieth-century New York, but failed around the same time to find a niche in Argentina. The book explains why the Russian mafia failed to penetrate Rome but succeeded in Hungary. A pioneering chapter on China examines the challenges that triads from Taiwan and Hong Kong find in branching out to the mainland. This book is both a compelling read and a sober assessment of the risks posed by globalization and immigration for the spread of mafias.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document