Drug and alcohol addiction and substance abuse, in general, is one of the most serious and deadly and concerning aspects of the United States today. This has been an ongoing and rather worrisome crisis issue that has shown no sign of dropping down or getting better any time soon.
Drug and alcohol addiction has been called the greatest health crisis of the 21st century, and recently the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention labeled the threat levels of drug and alcohol addiction to a full-on epidemic, harkening a risk factor for substance abuse the likes of which has never been seen before. Without a doubt, this is a problem and a crisis issue that needs to be addressed and worked through sooner rather than later. For some of the statistics on it:
- In the year of 2012, it was estimated that there were no less 493,000 persons of the age of twelve or older who had used a prescription pain reliever non-medically for the first time in their lives. This, unfortunately, averages out to about a total of 1,350 new pain drug abusers every single day in the United States of America. Now pain drugs rival marijuana for the number one gateway drug in the nation.
- Prescription drugs are realistically rapidly becoming the new, initial drug abused for new addicts. Of those who started abusing drugs in the last year of 2015, more than a quarter began by abusing a prescription medication, (twenty-six percent actually). As mentioned above, give it a few more years and pills will be the number one gateway drug in the entire nation.
- Alcohol abuse and addiction are more common now in American life than it ever was before too. This is scary because the two most common drugs are both legal substances. For example, in the year of 2013 alone, over eighty-six percent of individuals in the United States from the age of eighteen or older reported that they drank alcohol at some point in their lifetime in a somewhat excessive fashion that was abusive and bordering on addictive habits. Over fifty-six percent reported that they drank excessively in the past six months alone. A big problem to say the least.
Why a Crisis Intervention is So Necessary and So Needed
Crisis interventions for drug and alcohol abuse and those who engage in these habits are now becoming more needed and necessary than they ever were before. Studies have shown to us that in recent years the current percentage of American drug and alcohol addicts who are NOT willing to seek out drug and alcohol addiction rehabilitation numbers are as high as ninety percent. This is bad news for the United States of America indeed. The horrendous concept that one can just, “deal with his or her addiction,” is more prevalent than ever before in this country, making the vast majority of the addicted populace feeling as though they do not need rehab, and that they don’t really have a problem, to begin with, either.
This could not be more untruthful. Drug and alcohol addiction kills almost half of the people afflicted with it! If you are considering performing an addiction on a family member or loved one and another family member or loved one is against it then you need to do everything within your power to convince them that an intervention is absolutely needed and in fact, is necessary. You can do things like:
- Educate them. Show them the statistics. Show them just how bad addiction is.
- Open their eyes to the addiction crisis within your mutual family member. Really get them to see how bad it is.
- Get them to see the future consequences of what will happen to that family member if they do not get an intervention and get clean.
There are lots of ways of going about convincing someone of something. You can even get really rhetorical with them if you have to. Whatever you do, make sure that they know that an intervention is necessary and in fact is a must.
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