Drug Abuse Education – It’s a Fact!
How do I know how much treatment my child needs?
Interventions need to be responsive to your child’s needs. Levels of care depend on intensity of treatment services and supervision. These include inpatient treatment, residential treatment (group homes, therapeutic communities), partial hospitalization, or day treatment and outpatient treatment with or without community treatment (self-help groups or self-support groups). The American Society of Addiction Medicine has placement criteria for adolescents that take these variables into account during a comprehensive evaluation.
Duration of treatment is determined by likelihood of a successful transition to a lesser restrictive setting. Outpatient treatment is the least restrictive level whose treatment is time limited and focused. This usually involves a single or limited combination of treatment modalities.
Community treatment includes school-based programs and self-help groups such as Narcotics Anonymous (NA) or Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), which are important adjuncts to treatment. Self-help groups are available for families and friends (Al-Anon, Parents of Teenage Alcohol and Drug Abusers), which provide support, psycho education, and modeling to reduce maladaptive enabling behaviors of parents, families, and friends.
Lito’s comment:
For my son, Stanley, being in a residential program stopped his drug use. He was using a lot of cough medications and got involved with legal problems. It was difficult for me to even consider that he had to go to a drug program. He was away from us and his siblings missed him. I believe now that he needed his own time alone to grow up and mature. He is now more confident and looks forward to going home, and I also feel more confident in helping him keep his sobriety.
What is a day program?
A day program is an outpatient program that is usually considered when your child’s needs cannot be met by simply attending weekly individual or group counseling.
A day program consists of providing milieu treatment (the setting becomes a driving force of treatment, with a built-in behavior plan), in addition to a number of group, family, and individual therapies. Certain programs also provide psychiatric treatment, with medication monitoring in particular. Day programs may either be after school or for a full day, depending on how intensive the needs are or how compromised the adolescent’s functioning has been. For example, if the adolescent has been missing classes, has had multiple suspensions, or is failing in school, a full-day program is justified.
Parental involvement is key to the success of this program.
Parents have to make use of the behavior modification to effect positive changes in their child’s behavior.
This is an expectation that I always discuss with parents at the outset. Due to mounting frustration, parentshave the tendency to expect providers to treat their child without the parents being involved, and this is a limiting problem that has to be addressed.
When should I hospitalize my child?
The American Society of Addiction Medicine criteria have been modified to meet the needs of adolescents for placement purposes. Criteria for receiving inpatient treatment include:
1. Controlled environment for persistent running away
2. Separation from a problematic family environment so that crisis stabilization can be made in an inpatient setting
3. Increasing intensity of treatment when lower levels of care are not sufficient
4. Severe and clinically significant psychiatric conditions involving psychosis, suicidal or homicidal behavior, or acutely dangerous behavior
5. Risk of withdrawal problems Adolescents with severe personality maladaptive patterns, inadequate psychosocial supports, and history of treatment failures are appropriate candidates for residential treatment.
Term:
Day program – An intensive outpatient treatment program that relies heavily on milieu as its defining treatment, combined with behavior interventions, and group, individual, and family therapies
Parental involvement is key to the success of this program
How many adolescents have been treated in hospitals?
In 2006, there were 2.1 million youths aged 12–17 (8.2% of this population) who needed treatment for an illicit drug or alcohol use problem. From this, only 181,000 youths received treatment at a specialty facility (approximately 8.7% of youths who needed treatment), leaving 1.9 million youths who needed treatment for a substance use problem but did not receive it at a specialty facility.
Specialty treatment is defined as treatment received at any of the following types of facilities: hospitals (inpatient only), drug/alcohol rehabilitation facilities (inpatient or outpatient), or mental health centers. It does not include treatment at an emergency room, private doctor’s office, self-help group, prison, or jail.
In 2006, approximately 7.7% of the drug/alcohol admissions to treatment facilities in the United States involved individuals ages 17 and younger. Significantly, marijuana abuse ranks as the highest reason for admission at 61% of those admitted younger than 15 years and 65% of those admitted between 15 and 17 years. Alcohol abuse and alcohol abuse with secondary drug abuse is responsible for 7–12% of those admitted. Two to four percent of admission was accounted for by methamphetamine use.
Edwin’s comments:
I realize that sometimes, hospitalization is necessary. My son Bobby was depressed and using drugs and I didn’t know which one was driving the other. He was so depressed that
he could not take care of himself, but he continued to use. The doctor recommended hospitalization to stabilize him, and I would have lost him without it. The hospital staff has been helpful. After that, he came back to the day program and continued to move on.
Term:
Specialty treatment – Treatment received at any of the following types of facilities: hospitals (inpatient only), drug/alcohol rehabilitation facilities (inpatient or outpatient), or mental health centers.
