Essay Example Dedicated to Counseling on Alcohol Addiction

Part 1

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The meeting I attended was on substance use and its effects on the users. The venue was at Baltimore BA, with a title: Open meeting, Substance Abuse, impact and Recovery Options for the Victims. The meeting format was an open session that was structure to involve questions, organized discussions, suggestions of the most appropriate ways of carrying the victims through the recovery process and recommendations from the current or past experiences with helping victims of substance abuse towards proper recovery.

Closed Meeting refers to a seminar that only allows AA members who have problems related to alcohol drinking and who have the desire to quit alcohol. On the other hand, Open meeting refers to the meeting that is available for the interested alcoholics who are recovering from alcoholism, but the meeting is open for non-alcoholics too. Home group is a support group consisting of friends who offer first-hand support and advice as continuing support to help their fellows heal from their current addictions (Hingson & Zha, 2009). A sponsor is a sober member of a given AA group who offers support and who has passed through the 12-steps in book alcoholics anonymous. They should be persons of the same sex. He or she tells the truth to the client in need. Steps are the aspects that a sponsor admits to having learned about alcoholism. They are the steps that enable an individual to make a permanent change and advice others to consider the change in their substance abuse experiences. The sponsors of the group were individuals from five states including Texas, Louisiana, California, Washington DC, and New York.

Part 2

Impacts of Substance Use Disorder

Alcoholism destroys developments, shakes relationships, and ruins families if it goes beyond addiction. According to the discussion carried out in the meeting, there were several cases outlined by the participants and the attendants who happened to be victims, viewers and those who have had a chance of visiting rehabilitation centers for alcoholics. Among the issues discussed, I was moved by the case that Robert Robinson from Louisiana state outlined about his friend (Hingson & Zha, 2009). He described had to live under constraints, to be passed through several lectures from his wife about the impending danger that was awaiting him and how irresponsible he had grown to be despite the fact that they had two kids to raise (Roozen, De Waart & Van Der Kroft, 2010). However, alcohol addiction could let him heed any advice. Thus, he went ahead and took more than he should to the point of facing blackout and failed to report to the job. Unfortunately, he received his layoff letter for subsequent failure of adhering to the corporate behavior.

As a way of recovery, the attendants were asked to outline the various methods that they would advise the victims of substance abuse towards recovering from the pandemic upon them. Since the meeting was open to both alcoholics and non-alcoholics, the piece of advice that each member gave out served as a framework for enhancing sobriety of the alcoholics who had attended. For that matter, support from the therapist who had passed through the 12 steps outlined the proper manner of achieving abstinence for the alcoholics in the meeting. Another way that the alcoholics could be carried through the process of healing and becoming sober was through narrative therapy mid-treatment letter. After a thorough study into the side effects that alcohol does to live, a person's social, economic and family life, the alcoholics in the meeting were assigned therapists to help them attain proper sobriety and to let them carry on a fulfilling life. Through narrative therapy mid-treatment letter, the alcoholics were helped to realize their strengths and weaknesses since it helps in summarizing the aspects that were communicated in the therapy session and opened up the mind of the patient to have a broad scope of whatever was described during the therapy session.

In addition, the alcoholics seeking sobriety were allowed to listen to real-life stories of the people were once victims of alcoholism and struggled towards recovering and starting a new life of sobriety. For that matter, the best real-life account was outlined by Robert Robinson from Texas who described that when he was 24, he was a victim of binge drinking and he had reached a point where he could not do without alcohol (Brooks, Enoch, Goldman, Li & Yokoyama, 2009). However, the mistakes that he made in his life made him seek to become sober enough to avoid the challenges that alcohol had done to his life. As a start, Robinson outlined that for one to be able to recover, then they should, first of all, accept their problem and accept to be oriented towards recovery. Regarding Schuckit (2009), Robinson outlined that alcohol makes individuals add too much weight, makes them weak and alters their usual reasoning. For that matter, he said that, as an alcoholic, it is a wise idea to accept that for once one is incapable of making right decisions, he needs help to attain sober mind and that he or she must take the hard tackles that await them as they start refraining from alcoholism.

Another example of how members were engaged in the meetings approaches of realizing change was from a therapist and a real-life example of a victim of alcoholism and narcotic drugs. Ronal, a therapist from Baltimore BA, outlined that during his teenage life until he was 27, he happened to be a chain smoker, he consumed hard drugs and often attended drinking sprees that rendered his life useless and attached to intoxication. He outlines that for better recovery option, the individuals need to recount the mistakes they have made while they are in their intoxicated state. Secondly, they should think of how life would be if they could not have had a chance to taste alcohol and indulge in it (White, 2009). Through such kind of meditation, the alcoholics will be able to choose between seeking help for the process of recovering from their problems. After that, the individuals should set goals of how they will be reducing the amount of alcohol they consume until the time they will be able to do without it and refrain entirely.

Therapist's actions

The two specific steps that a counselor can take are to pass the patient through solution-focused therapy as a way of identifying the problem (Gillen, 2010). The second one is outlining the issue of the patient as communicated in the first meeting through a narrative therapy mid-treatment letter that will enable the patient to live knowing where his mistakes emerge from thus helping them to refrain from factors that attach them to the errors.

Goals Setting for Recovery

1. Overcoming the character flaws that result in engaging in susceptible activities that occur in addiction.2. Finding worthwhile things and rebuilding relationships that have been broken or damaged by addiction.

Two specific examples of actions a counselor might use to help substance use disorder Individuals to defeat unbecoming Behaviors.

1. Through aspect of showing empathy to the patients of alcohol addiction and suggesting possible ways of attaining recovery.

2. Confronting the addicts with facts of bad habits in alcoholism and addiction.

References

Brooks, P. J., Enoch, M. A., Goldman, D., Li, T. K., & Yokoyama, A. (2009). The alcohol flushing response: an unrecognized risk factor for esophageal cancer from alcohol consumption. PLoS medicine, 6(3), e1000050.

Gillen, M. (2010). Solution-focused therapy. Integrating the Expressive Arts into Counseling Practice: Theory-Based Interventions, 29.

Hingson, R. W., & Zha, W. (2009). Age of drinking onset, alcohol use disorders, frequent heavy drinking, and unintentionally injuring oneself and others after drinking. Pediatrics, 123(6), 1477-1484.

Roozen, H. G., De Waart, R., & Van Der Kroft, P. (2010). Community reinforcement and family training: An effective option to engage treatmentresistant substanceabusing individuals in treatment. Addiction, 105(10), 1729-1738.

Schuckit, M. A. (2009). Alcohol-use disorders. The Lancet, 373(9662), 492-501.

White, W. L. (2009). The mobilization of community resources to support long-term addiction recovery. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 36(2), 146-158.