Cultural, Social and Historical Overview of Addiction, Treatment and Recovery

Course Objectives

• Understand the purpose of a cultural, social and historical overview of addiction and the need for perspective.
• Critically evaluate statistics and facts about addiction, treatment and recovery.
• Understand the conflict of addiction being considered a medicine/biology versus public health problem.
• Define the context of substance use and the problem itself.
• Gain a comprehension of the historical developments in addiction treatment to see what has and hasn’t helped reduce the problem.
• Learn about alcohol and the environments it is consumed in.
• Understand how the New Recovery Movement affects your clients.
• Discuss behavioral health trends and how technology is aiding the organization of alcohol and drug services.

What You Learn

• Cultural, social and historical approaches to treatment
• Contemporary alcohol and drug use patterns, problems and trends
• Social control strategies
• Cultural context of substance use
• The disease model
• Drug and setting
• Evolution of addiction treatment and efforts to reduce alcohol and drug problems
• Examples of treatment, including Inebriate Homes, Keeley Institutes, AA, Oxford Movement, Minnesota Model, Social Model and Aversion Therapy
• Harm reduction
• Challenges to traditional approaches such as non-12-step/self-empowerment recovery and the new recovery movement
• Role of culture and diversity
• How to target ethnic communities
• How to treat diverse populations
• Recovery advocacy and public policy
• The Americans in Recovery Act
• Federal and state agencies and their policies
• Behavioral health integration trends
• The evolution of information technology in behavioral health
• Controlling tobacco use

How You Learn

• In-class discussions
• Trivia questions
• Videos
• Written papers
• Presentations
• Final examination