Bridges to Recovery, Essay Example

According to Jo-Ann, family therapy and addiction treatment have had a great influence on one another since mid-sixties. As regards to family functioning, family therapy has generated many different clinical and theoretical models while addiction treatment has diversified focus from heroin and alcoholism to cover treatment for chemical dependency, polydrug addiction and other addiction. Family therapy has made treatment and theory relating to addiction and families applicable to issues of ethnicity, class and gender. With the U.S population composition rapidly changing, issues of multiculturalism have been prevalent. According to Jo-Ann, immigrants, non-whites and women work force numbers were set to increase by five –sixth by 2000. With multiculturalism, comes the issue of substance abuse due to related factors such as shame, false pride, power and powerlessness. These had become one of the largest and most costly problems in health care. Multicultural competence has thus proved to be an important dimension in the treatment of addictions.

In the twenty first century, a number of ecological contexts deserved more attention as regard to recovery form addiction. Thus, the role played by gender in relation to addiction recovery is paramount as it is identified as one of the worst prevalent risk factor causing addition. Gender in this context refers to male. According to a number of reports and studies regarding alcohol and health such as the 1997’s Ninth Special Report to the United States congress; ‘men drink more than women and also report more alcohol related complications than women do (p. 27). These studies further suggest that future studies on women in relation o alcohol use should be directed to depressions, adult and childhood violent victimizations, sexual experience and partners’ or husband’s drinking influence (p. 28). It’s apparent that all these factors being determinants of drinking in women are to a greater extent related to their relationships with men rather than with fellow women. On the other hand, spirituality/religion has been identified as having an immense influence to on the drinking habits. It’s surprising that little attention has been focused on religion as a demographic variable since the 1969’s Cahalan, Crossley and Cisisn original research. According to Royce (1995) and Chappel (1997), alcoholism is a disease of the body, mind and spirit though culture differs with this view. Even though there is evidence of the important role played by spirituality in alcoholism recovery, little research is being focused towards religion and hence there lies greater possibility of neglecting the role religious bodies’ play in reforming alcoholism personalities.

According to Jo-Ann Krestan, the interaction between a drug user and the drug is either complementary or symmetrical. At earlier stages of drug use, the addict asserts that they have control over the drug. They insist to have a symmetrical relationship with the drug and thus are ‘equal to it’ such that they have the ability to control the drug and themselves. With time, they loose control over the drug and thus this relationship becomes complementary with them being down and the drug up. This is the ideology of ‘power over’ whereby the more the power of one side, the lesser the power of the other side. Its clear that the reciprocal cycle relating to power and powerlessness need to be broken so as to end addiction. In the pride cycle in chapter one, the addict in aid of the drugs, perceives themselves to be the master of all things and assume to be in control, powerful, not constrained by limitations and not needing anyone. This explains the ideology of ‘power over’. In the real sense, this is false pride as the addicts do not have extra power that sober people lack. Addicts then become more addicted and out of control following continued use of drugs to maintain this illusion of ‘power over’. A recovery approach for this calls for a change of the belief that they are not powerless over the drug, and that they have self power whenever they feel to be temporary powerful. This is paramount in restoring the addicts to empowerment-‘power to’. Through empowerment, addicts are offered a space to replace the power over’-false pride, with power to’-healthy pride.

According to Suzanne Pharr, there exist no hierarchy in oppressions as each is destructive and terrible and their common elements have to be understood to be able identify interconnections between the oppressions. One such element is-the defined norm; referring to a standard of righteousness or rightness which serves as a basis for judging beliefs. The element though works in relation to economic power, institutional power and both individual and institutional violence making total power possible. Issues of stereotyping also play a role in addiction and recovery cases. Lack of knowledge about others is expressed trough stereotyping which promotes dehumanization of individuals and denial of their behavior and characteristics. Stereotyping enhances the element of blaming on the oppressed who end up having allowed self esteem and internalizing the oppression. This eventually promotes isolation with the victim (addict) becoming withdrawn from the rest. This enhances chemical dependence among the victims in a bid to mask the reality if events in life such as self-blame self-esteem and isolation.

Social construction is a sociological theory seeking to explain the development of social phenomena in social contexts. It thus involves the creation of particular groups. Social construction is defined by the by-products of numerous human choices and not divine nature or will. Social construction thus influences the manner in which individuals take part in the formation of what they regard as social reality. Social construction therefore seeks to define ways through which phenomena are formed, institutionalized and eventually adopted as tradition by humans. There fore a reality that’s socially constructed is one involving a dynamic, ongoing process generated by people acting on their knowledge and interpretation of the reality. With this respect, psychologists have adopted the use of social constriction ideology in addiction therapy. Social construction is thus applied in four major approaches in therapeutic posture: consciousness of construction, collaboration, movements relating to flexibility; and value related practice.