Substance Abuse Resources

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The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration or SAMHSA has recently established several resources and initiatives to aid individuals and their families with the treatment and prevention of substance abuse and mental health disorders. Among these initiatives is the ADS Center or the resource center to promote Acceptance, Dignity, and Social Inclusion associated with mental health. A variety of recourses and information recourses are provided by the ADS center.

The focus of this initiative is to provide resources and information to improve the acceptance and support of children and individuals with substance abuse and mental health disorders. Additionally, the center provides a wealth of information on prevention of substance abuse and some mental health disorders by providing tips, community action plans, and educational resources. Moreover, the center places a substantive focus on the prevention of substance abuse in youth.

Among the many resources provided by ADS are facts, tips, and information for a variety of audiences or on a variety of topics. The audiences targeted by the center include, families, consumers, providers, and older adults. Informational topics addressed by the ADS center include a wide range of categories such as art, culture, education, employment, housing, media, language, research, and substance use disorders.

The information provided for each audience or topic includes fact sheets, articles, current research, books, and information about available resources. Additionally, the information provided through the various mediums addresses a multitude of topics, which focus on awareness, inclusion, acceptance, and community involvement to either support individuals with substance abuse or mental health concerns or prevent substance abuse.

This current initiative demonstrates SAMHSA dedication to aiding individuals and families with the prevention and community support of those with substance abuse and mental health problems. This center provides a wealth of information for families and communities to aid in support and prevention, while promoting healthier lifestyles and recovery efforts for these individuals.

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What causes substance addiction?

A variety of factors can contribute to a person’s likelihood of becoming addicted to drugs, but what really happens to turn someone into an addict? For starters, substance addiction is considered to be a neurological or brain disease by those in the mental health field. Many people do not truly understand the effects on a person’s brain from taking drugs, which essentially leads to dependency and addiction.

One misconception that people have is that substance abusers and those with substance addiction can just stop taking the substance. This is often not a possibility without help and treatment. Those that suffer from substance abuse and addiction have changed brain chemistry, which often prevents them from just stopping.

Most substances actually alter brain chemistry such as mimicking or blocking brain transmitters affecting multiple areas of a person’s personality and brain function that govern areas such as impulse control, memory, judgment, learning, decision making and behavior control.

Furthermore, changes in brain chemistry are not the only aspects that contribute to addiction and substance abuse. Other factors that can contribute to the likelihood of addiction are biology, environment, and development.

Developmental state of the person when substance abuse begins can further impact brain changes that lead to substance abuse and addiction. Biological factors such as certain genes, gender, race, or having other mental disorders can increase substance abuse probability. Finally environmental factors such as peer pressure, quality of life, socioeconomic status, ad family environment can also contribute to substance abuse.

Overall the beginning of substance use can eventually lead to the abuse of the substance in an effort to counteract tolerance to the substance. Over time the changes in brain chemistry due to substance abuse can eventually lead to addiction.
Fortunately, now that the medical field and mental health professionals better understand substance abuse and addiction as well as understand the effects on the brain, targeted and more successful treatment options have been developed.

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Policy Challenges Affecting Substance Treatment

A variety of policy issues affect the availability and the quality of substance abuse treatments. Among these policy challenges are insurance policies, federal and state laws, regulations, and funding policies

Insurance companies and healthcare providers typically give substance abuse treatment lower priority. This translates into higher costs for the patients, limits on the length or amount of coverage for treatment plans, and lower caps on minimum expenditures for patients.

This prevents patients from obtaining long-term treatment, which has proven to be more successful, as well as limits the amount of treatment patients can obtain later if relapse occurs. Additionally, this financially prevents some patients from obtaining treatment at all.

Moreover, limited funding from public and private sources is significantly less than what is needed to maintain quality treatment facilities. Additional funding for prevention and treatment could decrease the funding needs for addressing related issues such as healthcare for diseases contracted during substance abuse or crime related to substance abuse.

Furthermore, with limited funding and policies that place treatment under the control of managed care, the ability for treatment facilities to provide types of treatments, the intensity, and duration of treatment has been impacted. Thus, quality of treatment is decreased which in turn decrease the successfulness of treatment programs.

Finally, policies that prevent substance abuse from being integrated in current healthcare systems also impact patient’s abilities to receive additional needed health services for co-existing conditions that either contribute to or are result of the substance abuse.

A variety of factors contribute to this isolation of substance abuse but many result from lack of funding, lack of knowledge about substance abuse treatment, and negative attitudes.

In all, a variety of challenges for both patients and treatment facilities exist. However, if these challenges can be overcome, research has shown the significant benefits that treatment can provide to not only the patients, but also the community and to state and federal budgets.

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Addressing Policy Challenges to Substance Abuse Treatment

Although a number of policy challenges exist for substance abuse treatment, recent developments in policy changes have indicated that many are beginning to see the benefits and values of substance abuse treatment. This has resulted in several initiatives that have been started to address these issues and improve substance abuse treatment.

One main initiative is the decision some states have made to provide treatment rather than incarceration for substance abusers with non-violent crimes. In these instances, the states appear to be addressing crime issues with a treatment option to prevent future crimes and to reduce spending.

Another main initiative address research based evidence for treatment approaches. The development of the National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trails Network or CTN connects relevant research on new and effective treatment methods to treatment facilities. This improves the quality of care at treatment facilities as well as providing the facilities with access to information on proven, tested, and effective methods for substance abuse prevention and treatment.

A final initiative addresses health care coverage and collaboration between health care needs and substance abuse treatment. First, efforts are being made to provide some with health coverage, which provides equal coverage for substance abuse and mental health services as is provided for other health care procedures.

Additionally, an initiative was created to provide cross-training workshops designed to provide information and training in a variety of professional fields that allows these professionals to understand and address the complex needs of their substance abuse clients. Fields included in the cross-training workshops were substance abuse, general health care, mental health services, and criminal justice.

Even though the field of substance abuse prevention and treatment is not fully where it needs to be, at least measures are being taken to address the many challenges that face treatment facilities and substance abuse patients. Overall, established research on the effectiveness of substance abuse treatment is finally improving the ability to access affordable quality treatment.

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