Useful Language

I agree completely. I don't agree with that.

I feel the same. I don't think that's right.

Definitely. I don't think so.

Absolutely That's wrong.

That's just what I think.

2. Answer the following questions about smoking and alcohol regulations in our country. Summarize the results in a short piece of writing.

1. How old do you have to be to buy a pack of cigarettes (a can of beer, etc)?
2. Are young people warned against smoking?
3. Is there a warning label on cigarettes?
4. Are cigarettes advertised on television?
5. Are cigarettes advertised in magazines and newspapers?
6. Is there a national campaign against smoking?
7. Where is smoking allowed?
8. Where isn't smoking allowed?

3. A. Which of these factors do you consider to be the most influential on drug use in adolescence:

a) Parents suffering from addiction

b) Irresponsible and indifferent parenting

c) Permissive parenting

d) Peers

e) Inability to cope with stress and emotions without drugs

C. Do a class-in survey based on ex. 1 and comment on the results.

Pre-reading

Scan the text. Choose the heading from the list (A-D) for each part (1-4) of the text.

A. Explanations fro the Development of Psychological disorders.

B. The Role of Development, Parents, and Peers in Adolescents Drug Abuse.

C. Substance Abuse.

D. Smoking Prevention: A Multimodal Approach.

Reading

1. Read the text. Look at the statements and find evidence in the text to support them.

a) Adolescence use drugs to cope with stress.

b) Initial step in drug abuse is absence of the parental ties in childhood.

c) Alcoholics develop psychological dependence on alcohol.

d) It’s difficult to diagnose organic disfuntctions of a behavioral disturbance.

Text.

Part 1.

Researchers have examined the factors that are related to drug use in adolescence, especially the roles of development, parents, peers, and schools.

Most adolescents become drug users at some point in their development, whether limited to alcohol, caffeine, and ciga­rettes, or extended to marijuana, cocaine, and hard drugs. A special concern involves adolescents using drugs as a way of coping with stress, which can interfere with the development of competent coping skills and responsible decision making. Researchers have found that drug use in childhood or early ado­lescence has more detrimental long-term effects on the devel­opment of responsible, competent behavior than when drug use occurs in late adolescence (Newcomb 8c Bentler, 1989). When they use drugs to cope with stress, young adolescents often enter adult roles of marriage and work prematurely, with­out adequate socioemotional growth, and experience greater failure in adult roles.

How early are adolescents beginning drug use? National samples of eighth- and ninth-grade students were included in the Institute for Social Research survey of drug use for the first time in 1991 (Johnston, O'Malley, 8c Bachman, 1992). Early on in the increase in drug use in the United States (late 1960s, early 1970s), drug use was much higher among college students than among high school students, who in turn had much higher rates of drug use than middle or junior high school students. However, today the rates for college and high school students are similar, and the rates for young adolescents are not as dif­ferent from those for older adolescents as might be anticipated.

Parents, peers, and social support play important roles in preventing adolescent drug abuse. A developmental model of adolescent drug abuse has been proposed by Judith Brook and her colleagues (Brook 8c Brook, in press; Brook 8c others, 1990). They believe that the initial step in adolescent drug abuse is laid down in the childhood years, when children fail to receive nurturance from their parents and grow up in conflict-ridden fami­lies. These children fail to internalize their parents' personality, attitudes, and behavior, and later carry this absence of parental ties into adolescence. Adolescent characteristics, such as lack of a con­ventional orientation and inability to control emotions, are then expressed in affiliations with peers who take drugs, which, in turn, leads to drug use.

Positive relationships with parents and others are important in reducing adolescents' drug use. In one study, social support (which consisted of good relationships with parents, siblings, adults, and peers) during adolescence substantially reduced drug abuse (Newcomb 8cBender, 1988). In another study, adolescents were most likely to take drugs when both of their parents took drugs (such as tranquilizers, amphetamines, alcohol, or nicotine) and their peers took drugs (Kandel, 1974).

Part 2.

As long as a person's use of a drug, whether tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, or any other consciousness-altering substance, remains with­in reasonable bounds - when the drug is used and not abused - the practice does not fall under the category of psychological disorders. But when a person comes to depend upon one of these substances, so that her or his life is primarily devoted to getting and using the drug, the condi­tion fits all the definitions of abnormality. Although there are as many varieties of substance abuse as there are drugs, we shall focus on only one - alcohol abuse. Alcoholism is the most serious drug problem in the United States, and alcoholism is a major sub-category of mental disorder. Current estimates are that there are between 7.5 and 10 million alcoholics in the United States (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1999).

Alcohol abuse carries a high social and person­al cost. The social damage of alcohol abuse takes many forms: family disruption; decreased job pro­ductivity due to inefficiency, accidents, absence, and low morale; death, injury, and property dam­age from alcohol-related automobile accidents; and increased medical care for alcoholics. The American Hospital Association estimates that ap­proximately half of all occupied beds in United States' hospitals are filled by people with ailments linked to the consumption of alcohol. In the economic area, alcoholism has great costs to the American economy. The personal costs of alcoholism are severe psychological and physiological deterioration.

Alcohol is a depressant, suppressing inhibitions and allowing people to do or say things they ordinarily would not. Some people feel good when they drink, others become depressed, and others lose all anxiety or guilt over their past, present, or future behavior. In large quantities, alcohol causes disorders of sensation and perception, can lead to dangerous, self-destructive behavior, and is capable of producing coma and death.

Alcoholics build up a tolerance for alcohol; to experience the original feeling of well-being, or freedom from anxiety, they must increase their intake of alcohol. Often drinkers develop such a psychological dependence on alcohol that they feel normal only when they have been drinking and experience severe, painful symptoms if they stop. The slide into alcoholism generally follows the same sequence of behavior. A study of 2,000 alco­holic men showed that the sequence begins with periodic excessive drinking, then progresses through blackouts, sneaking drinks, losing con­trol over the amount of alcohol drunk, remorse over drinking and rationalization of excess alcohol consumption, enforcing a change in drinking pat­terns in an attempt to solve the problem, morning drinking, alcoholic binges lasting for several days, and the onset of alcohol-related physical ailments, the centering of life around alcohol, and the ad­mission of defeat (Jellinek, 1946).

Because of the toxic effects of alcohol on the body and the malnutrition that so often accompa­nies chronic alcoholism, alcoholics are likely to develop diseases affecting the liver, brain, and nervous system. Prolonged alcoholism leads to degenerative brain disease. A chronic alcoholic whose blood alcohol level drops suddenly may experience delirium tremens, better known as DTs. This reaction is actually a withdrawal symp­tom. Patients with DTs tremble, perspire heavily, become disoriented, and suffer nightmarish hallu­cinations. These last from three to six days, after which the person may vow never to take another drink—a vow that in many cases is broken soon after discharge from the hospital or treatment center.

Part 3.

At least 15 percent of U.S. adolescents describe themselves as "smokers." Many if not most young people experiment with cigarettes. What causes some to acquire this extremely risky habit? Any number of studies show that teenagers are most likely to become smokers if they have a positive image of the smoker, if their peers pressure them to smoke, and if their parents and others whom they admire smoke. Teenagers often see the smok­er as sophisticated and rebellious, as willing to take risks and defy authority figures. Smoking conveys this image; not smoking may invite accu­sations of being a "chicken" or a "sissy." Observ­ing older adolescents and adults (especially par­ents) who enjoy smoking yet show no apparent ill effects eases youngsters’ fears about the dangers of smoking.

Evans and his colleagues (1978) designed a multimodal program for the Houston School Dis­trict to deal with these underlying motivations. Antismoking materials used in this program are designed to appeal specifically to adolescents. All teenagers know that smoking is risky, but few are concerned about health problems that might arise twenty or forty years in the future. Therefore, Evans concentrates on the current disadvantages of smoking (financial costs, bad breath, and the like). Films that explain the techniques advertis­ers use to sell cigarettes create a negative image of the smoker as someone who is easily duped. These are backed up by posters that appeal to the adoles­cent's need for independence: "You can decide for yourself."

Evans also uses older, high-status, nonsmok­ing peer leaders to model techniques for resisting social pressure. The goal is "behavioral inocula­tion," a social version of immunization. If individ­uals are exposed to a weak version of a germ, they develop antibodies to fight a stronger dose. By analogy, if individuals are exposed to weak ver­sions of social pressure to smoke, they develop counterarguments that protect them when they are exposed to intense social pressure. Some of the peer models who appear in films participate in group discussions and practice sessions after the film is shown.

Programs like this have been somewhat suc­cessful in preventing teenagers from smoking, or at least delaying the onset of smoking. In this case, some success - convincing 1,000 or even 500 teenagers not to smoke - saves lives.

Part 4.

Various explanations have been offered for the development of psychological disorders. Many theorists have believed that mental disorders such as depres­sion, alcoholism are due to organic dysfunction of the brain. Much evidence supports this idea. But many so­cial scientists feel that such mental disorders are due to psychological factors, emotional distur­bances, and environmental stress. About certain disorders, however, there is little argument; they are directly traceable lo the destruction of brain tissue or to biochemical imbalance in the brain. These disorders are known as organic brainsyn­dromes and are classified as a separate category in DSM-III. Included in the list are: alcoholic psychoses such as delir­ium tremens: drug or poison intoxication.

Because physical and mental health are so closely related, it is often difficult to determine whether a particular behavioral disturbance is due to organic dysfunction or to emotional factors. Most organic brain disorders are accompanied by five major symptoms; impairment of orientation (awareness of who and where one is); impairment of memory; impairment of other intellectual func­tions, such as comprehension, calculation, knowl­edge, and learning; impairment of judgment; in­appropriate affect. However, most of these symptoms are also present in schizophrenic pa­tients, in patients with conversion disorder, and even in depressed patients. Thus an accurate diag­nosis of organic brain syndrome is not easy.

3. Read the text again and list:

a) the main reasons for increase the intake of alcohol

b) the main forms of social damage of alcohol abuse

Follow-up

1. Project Work.

Using Power Point and Internet, create a Stop-Smoking Campaign on different levels (University Level, Federal Level) which helps to prevent smoking.

The information in part 3 of the text and the Life Skills Training Program mentioned below may help you in this work.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16