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Substance Abuse In America Essay

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In today’s society, we are bound to make friends or surround ourselves with all types of people. We make a lot of decisions based on our exposure or even sociocultural factors which also may influence the decisions made. Substance use, abuse and dependency are often confused with each other. Substance use is a prevalent public health problematic for which many of Americans would admit cure. According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (2015), one of the most preventable cause of death in the United States is the misuse of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. Throughout the following essay we will be discussing the problems of substance use in America. We will be defining substance use in my own words, discuss why America seemly …show more content…

Since drug abuse is typically a chronic disorder characterized by irregular setbacks, short-term treatments are not effective. These treatments can combine therapies and medications. In many cases treatments for drug abuse could vary based on the form we view, for example if we view it as a behavior and choice to fall into it we are more bound to wanting to understand other factors which may be linked. Maybe theories of psychopathology can clarify behaviors by an addict. In some way, they had to learn about the drug, try the drug and progress an addiction to the drug. When studying psychopathology one is able to determine the reasons behind the choices. On other hand, many today already consider substance abuse as a disease and addiction itself a disease. “Addiction is a complex but treatable disease that affects brain function and behavior” (NIDA, 2012). According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (2016), substance abuse is considered a brain disease, in many ways it is because the drugs change the brain; they change its structure and how it works. Much of these particular changes on the brain could be short term in addition to long term, creating self-destructive

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