Fight against addiction

Fight against addiction

There can be no doubt that addiction and drug addiction are one of the great problems of our time that our society cannot ignore.

It is a fact that the number of drug users is increasing, so we are facing more problems. It is also right and important for our society to deal with these problems in an appropriate way and to try to cope with them. It is about the health and social dimension.

At all times and in all cultures there have been addictive and intoxicating substances which have always been used or abused by people. There are also very many different psychoactive substances with different characteristics and effects, and a first necessary condition for a helpful treatment of the problem of addiction to troubled teens school is to have sufficient knowledge about the different characteristics and effects of the different addictive and intoxicating substances.

Drugs

According to the scientific definition, drugs are substances of plant, animal or synthetic origin which have effects on the central nervous system. These include stimulants, analgesics, tranquilizers and stimulants, as well as a variety of drugs, i.e. substances used to cure, prevent or diagnose diseases. Alcohol and nicotine are therefore just as much drugs as herbs and heroin, the casually swallowed sedative as other medications prescribed by the doctor. Addictive substances are all those substances – whether legal or illegal – whose abuse can result in dependence.

Addiction and drug addiction

The phenomenon of addiction and drug addiction can be described from an educational, psychological, sociological or medical point of view. The definition attempts of the individual disciplines differ from each other. What the various disciplines have in common is the aspect of compulsion. In the area of his life affected by addiction, the addict can no longer act according to his will, but obeys an urge that appears stronger than all intentions.

In some substance-bound forms of addiction, the recurring need for the addictive substance has a physiological basis in which certain substances are incorporated into the cell metabolism and the discontinuation of the substance after a shorter or longer period of regular use leads to physical withdrawal symptoms. Their intensity, however, depends very much on the inner and outer situation of the person concerned, which points to the great importance of the psychological component of any dependency.

Dependency is a strong fixation that shapes the life of the person concerned and restricts addictive behaviour and can be described as an illness. Drug addiction is a state of periodic or chronic poisoning by a central nervous agent that leads to mental and/or physical dependence on this agent.

Conditions under which addiction arises

In general, it is assumed that the conditions under which addictive behaviour develops are influenced by various factors – people (personality traits), the environment (social environment of society), addictive substances (pharmacological mode of action), the market (accessibility and price) and the specific life situation.

Combating the drugs problem

For many years, action to combat the drugs problem has been essentially limited to activities of tracing and tracing traffickers and narcotics. Although the resources made available for this purpose have multiplied worldwide, both in terms of direct financial resources and in personal terms, the drug problem has not decreased but increased. One of the reasons for this is certainly to be found in the fact that for a long time the addiction problem was understood only as a problem of supply and not equally as a problem of demand.

Drug prevention

In the literal sense, prevention means “anticipation”, “prevention” or “prevention”. The focus of current addiction prevention is no longer on addictive substances but on addictive behaviour, and addiction prevention as a whole is placed within the framework of general health promotion. Depending on the time of the preventive intervention, three types of prevention can be distinguished:

Primary prevention

Primary prevention is aimed at those groups that have not yet been affected by the drug problem; it aims to prevent the development of disorders or diseases. Primary prevention aims to gain influence both at the individual level (e.g. education, upbringing, information) and at the structural level (e.g. youth policy, advertising bans, etc.). Their perspective is long-term and starts in a possibly early phase of life.

Target groups of primary prevention measures are the general public, multipliers, educators, children, adolescents and young adults, parents, pastors, judges, executive and judicial guards, teachers and personnel managers, doctors and nursing staff, representatives of associations and the media, etc.

This involves working with people who are not addicted, within the framework of general health promotion, in the sense of education and information, in order to promote and maintain the health of the broad group of all children and adolescents in the sense of physical, mental and psychological well-being. The aim is to prevent people from falling into the danger zone of addictive and dependent behaviour at all.

Secondary prevention

Secondary prevention deals with the early detection of symptoms and states of tension that can lead to diseases. It starts in situations endangered to health or addiction and tries to avert these dangers. The target group is young people at risk and first-time consumers.

Secondary prevention measures are intended to reduce the harm to people who have already had experience with drug use and are thus in the dangerous vicinity of addiction and consequential harm. It is intended to prevent endangered drug users and abusers from becoming manifestly addicted people.

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