Residential drug-free treatment is used to identify live-in treatment that offers no chemical support. “Most residential drug-free programmes are therapeutic communities or have adopted some therapeutic-community or self-help method. Is often described as “a large family that provides physical and emotional support to all its members, to help them break free form drugs and the patterns of behaviour that reinforce drug use. It is a closely knit community where mutual concern is demonstrated and where “caring” relationships among residents and between residents and staff are the ideal, if not always the norm “.
(Mothner & Weitz,1984, p. 45 ). In these communities an individual’s status is never in doubt. Everybody has a job in the community; for example, somebody may work in the kitchen serving and the reward for doing that job well is a promotion in the hierarchical structure. The program is long, hard and extensive. The key element in this program is a staff of ex-addicts who are able to motivate and guide the new drug-dependent individuals effectively. The backbone of the therapy is the almost constant, brutally honest confrontations: Individuals are forced to see themselves through the eyes of other people.
Therapeutic communities can be a great success for those who manage to complete the residential period. As a number of long-term outcome studies in U. S. A pointed out, there are three measures of success: No use of illicit drugs, no criminal involvement, and full-time employment. Last but not least is the medical-psychological approach which best serves those who also suffer from psychological and physiological disorders that respond to professional intervention, usually in a hospital setting.
” Although this form of treatment entails mainly detoxification and medical management of drug use-related complications, it does provide such benefits as: Treatment of medical or psychiatric complications resulting from, or even causing drug use; Refuge for the approximately 15 percent of drug abusers who at any given time might seek abstinence; interaction with other drug abusers and motivated personnel involved in their treatment, and consequently new insights into the reality, and meaning of their situation; and perhaps the most important, regular contact with human beings who can show them compassion and caring concern without authoritative hostility. ” (Dreyfus,1976, p. 140).
Medical psychological intervention can be very effective to the portion of adolescence that uses drugs in order to self-medicate disorders such as: Manic-depressive states, schizophrenia or severe anxiety. When these disorders are eventually treated, individuals will not have the need to use illicit drugs anymore. The above are some main drug abuse therapies. There are some others, equally significant such as pharmacotherapy, communal therapy, legal therapy that can also help individuals to get off drugs and move ? n with their lives.
It must be stated however that no treatment program alone can be totally effective for the “drug problem”. Confronting this scourge of “slow death” is certainly not an easy thing to do. However, it can be controlled and healed with the help and effort of all of us. Everybody, the individuals and the society can make a difference in facing this problem. This threat, harass the youth from which our society expects a lot. That is why all of us have serious responsibility to deal with this threat, so our adolescents can enjoy a stable, progressive and creative future.
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Adolescence, 2nd edn. U. S. A: Wiley 7. HODGKINSON L. (1986) Addictions U. S. A: Thorsons 8. LEFRANCOIS G. R. (1981) Adolescents, 2nd edn U. S. A: Wadsworth. 9. MOTHNER I & WEITZ A. (1986) How to Get off Drugs London: Penguin books. 10. WYATT J. (1973) Talking About Drugs. London: Wayland.
