Alcohol and Drug Abuse
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Alcohol and drug abuse adversely affect people’s health, families and communities. Engaging in the practice negatively affects education, personal development, and national development. It is a menace that has been associated with crime, indiscipline, and destructive behavior (Assari et al., 2019). As a result of the effect of alcohol and drug abuse on individuals, families, and communities, there has been ongoing research on different aspects of the problem. The research has led to different research interests involving alcohol and drug abuse, and the differences have led to different perspectives in research and enforcement. The different perspectives and priorities among researchers and other stakeholders lead to gaps. For example, there are gaps in psychosocial interventions and other service delivery models. Generally, researchers and treatment providers have different interests involving alcohol and drug abuse.
Researchers believe that different innovations motivated by research have led to improved alcohol and drug abuse treatment. Major advances have been made in the behavioral treatment of alcohol and drug users. The advances have led to the establishment of contingency management as an effective way to avoid drug use while treating drug-dependent patients (Alves et al., 2020). Also, it has led to increased treatment intensity and follow-ups to improve treatment results for individuals suffering from alcohol and drug use. Researchers strongly believe that using research-tested modalities can greatly improve patient outcomes if fully utilized.
The people tasked with providing treatment face numerous challenges in providing services to patients suffering from alcohol and drug use. Most of them view the challenges as a failure of research to provide answers to their questions. The questions relate to areas of policy and reimbursement, which are perceived to be under-researched. According to treatment providers, existing policy provides little assistance for treatment programs to enforce new research findings. For example, the reimbursement in North and South Dakota is too low to facilitate the enforcement of robust contingency models.
References
Alves, R., Precioso, J., & Becoña, E. (2020). llicit Drug Use among College Students: The
Importance of Knowledge about Drugs, Live at Home and Peer Influence. Journal Of
Psychoactive Drugs, 53(4), 329-338. https://doi.org/10.1080/02791072.2020.1865592
Assari, S., Farokhnia, M., & Mistry, R. (2019). Education Attainment and Alcohol Binge
Drinking: Diminished Returns of Hispanics in Los Angeles. Behavioral Sciences, 9(1), 9.