According to the author, substance abuse is one of the major problems which have seized most individuals in the United States. It is a problem for all sets of the population. I think that author was correct according to his statement. This is because many people of all sorts of ages groups in the state have such problems. Due to substance abuse, several people suffer from addiction, and this results in mental disorders.
This has made mind disorders to be a common problem for most substance abusers. Many prisons in the United States are filled with culprits who have been convicted of the use of illegal drugs. Drug abusers include those who use alcoholic drinks, people addicted to a narcotic substance, and those addicted to a chemical substance or prescription medications. In addition, there are several patients in the health centers undergoing treatment due to drug overdose and abuse. This has made lives in many families to be at stake in their continuity as well as a happy living.
It is said that many substance abusers do not get well. This might be mostly due to the facts the author presents. He argues that all counselors no matters their field of specialty and setting come across people who are suffering from all sorts of substance abuse. However, the counselors lack the knowledge and skill of such substances. I, therefore, agree with the author, because the lack of knowledge of the substance and the skills in the various substances will automatically make them not deliver their services fully to their clients.
Hence, most of them remain to struggle with the problems for the rest of their life. They find themselves struggling with experiences such as eating gambling, sex, and work addiction. You find that people who are addicted to marijuana may take a lot of food or may not eat at all for several days. This becomes a problem for them. The same experiences are expected with those addicts of cocaine and alcoholic drinks.
On the side of the author, I found it so hard to believe his statements that counseling is a process that is beneficial to most clients of skilled counselors, yet a significant number of the clients are depicted to show adverse conditions rather than improvement. This is not even supported by the research. Research indicates just very few addicts get healed and better than before they underwent counseling.
The information was presented. This is because there was brevity, corrective ness, and clarity of sentences. It had a good flow of points whereby there is a consecutive step-by-step connection of the information.
The author was very sensitive to the diversity of issues in many ways. While he was making his statements, he made sure that he included gender sensitivity. This is shown by the usage of the word like “his” and “her” in the sentences where applicable. He also tries to tackle things dealing with different communities. He summarizes his work by mention that drug abuse is a social problem. This clears the boundaries of gender, culture, and ethnicity.
It is my opinion that counseling processes have not been so effective in the past. This can be attributed as due to a lack of the required knowledge and skill in the specialty of counseling. I, therefore, think that it will be better for institutions offering counseling programs to change the programs so that students will be well qualified as they go out to practice what they have learned in classrooms. By changing the programs, candidates will be given a better understanding of particular substance abuses, hence be in a better position to deliver their services to the clients. (Aguilar, 1991)
Reference
Aguilar, M. (1991): Mexican-American families: A psycho educational approach for addressing chemical dependency and codependency.