Substance Abuse

Substance abuse refers to the overindulgence in and dependence on a psychoactive leading to effects that is detrimental to the individual's physical health or, mental heath, or the welfare of others, according to the encyclopedia. But I think what people should refer to substance abuse, as is, the impression of personal relief. But really all it is, is a temporary solution to a permanent problem.

Drug rehabilitation (often drug rehab or just rehab) is an umbrella term for the processes of medical and/or psychotherapeutic treatment, for dependency on psychoactive substances such as alcohol, prescription drugs, and so-called street drugs such as cocaine, heroin or amphetamines. The general intent is to enable the patient to cease substance abuse, in order to avoid the psychological, legal, financial, social, and physical consequences that can be caused, especially by extreme abuse. The rehabilitation process directs two-fold nature of drug dependency: physical and psychological dependency. Physical dependency involves a detoxification process to cope with withdrawal symptoms from regular drug use. This is necessary because the brain gradually adapts to the presence of drugs. It may take the body weeks or moths (depending on drug involved) to return too normal.

Psychological dependency is attempting to teach the patient new methods of interacting in a drug free environment. There is a twelve-step program is to encourage addicts not only to stop using alcohol or other drugs, but to examine and change habits related to their addiction. Working the twelve steps involves:

„h admitting that one has a serious, uncontrollable problem;

„h recognizing that outside power could help;

„h conscious reliance upon that power

„h inventorying and admitting character defects;

„h seeking deliverance from these defects;

„h making amends to those one has harmed; and

„h helping others with the same problem.

The statistics are showing that there is a large increace in drug use among children. In 2005, an estimated 19.7 million Americans aged 12 or older were current (past month) illicit drug users, meaning they had used an illicit drug during the month prior to the survey interview. This estimate represents 8.1 percent of the population aged 12 years old or older.The overall rate of current illicit drug use among persons aged 12 or older in 2005 (8.1 percent) was similar to the rate in 2004 (7.9 percent), 2003 (8.2 percent), and 2002 (8.3 percent).Marijuana was the most commonly used illicit drug (14.6 million past month users). In 2005, it was used by 74.2 percent of current illicit drug users. Among current illicit drug users, 54.5 percent used only marijuana, 19.6 percent used marijuana and another illicit drug, and the remaining 25.8 percent used only an illicit drug other than marijuana in the past month.

The rates for past month and past year methamphetamine use did not change between 2004 and 2005, but the lifetime rate declined from 4.9 to 4.3 percent. From 2002 to 2005, decreases were seen in lifetime (5.3 to 4.3 percent) and past year (0.7 to 0.5 percent) use, but not past month use (0.3