The Heroin Diaries by Nikki Sixx

Empathy is a central theme that runs through the entire book. Dr. Bromfield highlights the importance and significance of empathy, understanding adolescents while balancing the need to challenge and push them. Empathy is an emotion, I value highly as a future humanistic counselor as I believe it can be a very potent tool in therapy. “ As to this day I am awed at empathic understanding’s near miraculous power to soften children’s and adults’ defensive resolve” (p48), he describes the miraculous power of empathy and how it can allow persons in therapy to uncover those other emotions that they may have suppressed quite well.

Riley (2017 pg 8) continues to say that, empathy is a dangerous notion if it’s thought to be a mindless, experimental, existential connectedness….whereas some patient encounter may require empathy; some will just be theory or experience. Contextualising empathy is therefore is difficult.

Chapter 3, “A Community of Addicted Bodies”, traces how physical and emotional dependence on heroin creates a social hierarchy within the

In the speech,”Everything you know about addiction is wrong,” spoken by Johann Hari, attempts to inform the audience about how society takes drug addiction the wrong way and is completely normal for a human to use drugs as a last resort in life. The presentation starts off when he explains to the audience the many different drug addicts he has met in his life a few years ago while traveling a long 30,000 mile journey. He then goes onto stating from his research that everything humanity has been taught about drugs is completely backwards. A experiment was done in the 50’s to show the relationship between drugs and social life. The reason people start drugs is not because they want to, but it is caused by not being able to bear a present in your life. Moreover, there is cruel punishments of drug abuse in America and how Portugal has tried to change it in their country. Luckily people can get over any kind of addiction when they have a friend or blood relative that they can call on if they have a crisis. Finally, people should be more supportive and open in their heart when it comes to others that have a addiction. The author uses logos and pathos to emotionally connect and comfort the people that have thought about drugs in their life and people that dislike drugs and addicts, but using ethos he tries to make a change in the natural drug habitat.

Dr. Gabor Mate, a Hungarian born Canadian physician, who is also a neurologist, psychiatrist, and psychologist, but who specializes in the study and treatment of addiction, reveals revolutionary evidence pertaining to addiction. In Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, Dr. Mate worked with patients suffering chronic drug addiction for 12 years. With 20 years of experience as a family practitioner, Dr. Mate is a renowned speaker and teacher throughout North America; sharing his extensive knowledge with diverse audiences including health care professionals and educators (Mate, About Dr. Mate, 2016). The Realm of Hungry Ghosts, Dr. Mate’s most recent best-selling book, illuminates the origins and causes of addiction. As Co-founder of Compassion for Addiction (a non-profit organization), Dr. Gabor Mate encourages a greater understanding; “addiction is the attempt of affected human beings to escape a profound discomfort with themselves and their world” (Mate, Compassion4Addiction, 2015). Drawing on cutting-edge science, Dr. Mate presents the world with a shocking discovery: “The source of addiction is not to be found in genes, but in the early childhood environment.” Therefore, Dr. Mate simply “calls for a more compassionate approach toward the addict.” (Mate, 2016) As cutting-edge science concludes addiction to be a mental health issue, rather than criminal behavior, the American legal system demonstrates a devastating disservice to its own society.

Individually, we create a metaphorical puzzle as we reflect on our life. These puzzle pieces represent all of the small-scale decisions we’ve made. Inside of those decisions, also consists of other people and how they influenced our upbringings. When this puzzle is put together, all of these decisions create one large picture. Specifically, Wes Moore’s “puzzle” obtains unfinished than other people, these pieces may not fit particularly well with other pieces, and they may never will. The reader may never perceive why Wes made any of the poor decisions he has made in his lifetime, nevertheless, there’s one large section of the puzzle that holds together–this would be Wes Moore’s influence from drug abuse. The idea of drug abuse continues to be frowned upon by other people. However, what most people may not understand is that there’s an addiction that comes with it, not an addiction to the drugs specifically, though an addiction to the lifestyle that came with it.

They even provide a constitutive power of it (p. 7). Garcia considers how addiction is a disease emerging from the need to numb invisible communal suffering produced by historical and ongoing trauma. “The word people often use for heroin in northern New Mexico is ‘medicinal,” Garcia explained in a recent interview. “They view heroin as just another medication that takes the pain away.” Garcia developed an intimate knowledge of heroin addiction in the valley by developing relationships with addicts while working at the only clinic in the region. As a consequence, The Pastoral Clinic shows the relationship between self-medicating and the regional geographic and cultural dispossessions that have led to displacement, marginalization, addiction, and communal pain.

The article “The drug that pretends it isn’t” was written by author Anna Quindlen. This article became available to the public in april,9,2000. This article brought to life a lot of issues regarding drugs and changed people’s perspective regarding the use of drugs. Throughout the article Quindlen presents multiple points towards the use of alcohol, and mentions the fact that it is very dangerous and should be consired a drug. Guindlen brings up very valid points regarding the alcohol abuse issue. She mentions that users don’t label alcohol as a drug because, they are blind towards the effect it brings on you and don’t realize that when you drink you are not in control of yourself that’s what a drug is. I am completely in agreement with Anna Quindlen and I agree that there should be more control towards alcohol. I am tired of witnessing so many drunk drivers taking the lives of many innocent adults and children on the road by driving when they are under the influence. Its Ludacris how they allow so much alcohol use at stadiums where there are at least thousands of kids trying to enjoy a game with their parents, oh I know because of the revenue it brings in. like a drug, it can cause you to react in a different manner, and its unpredictable whether you might act aggressive and require to be contained.

The importance of empathy in any helping profession, medical or social, cannot be overstated. The workers that exemplified it in their practice did the best that they could with their limited resources.

He assumes that drug addiction originated by younger years adversity in major cases; like many women who are addicted are victims of sexual assault in childhood years. Similar, he tells that males suffered “series of abandonment or severe physical and psychological abuse” (Maté 274) in childhood memory would easily be involved in addiction. According to Mate, drug addicts are usually in a state of unawareness; they can self-harm without feeling pain (274). Maté’s patient, Carl, thirty-six year-old native, angrily hurt himself with a knife as punishment for using cocaine (274). However, people misunderstand that addiction will not happen in families that raise children with a “secure nurturing home” (Maté 275). He argues that it still exists in those secure homes, even though they do not recognize it. In brief, Maté describes the mental factors such as stress, anxiety, and depression which are saddled “from family problem, or from outside circumstance” (274); this pressures can emotionally affect to the process of “endorphin-liberating interaction with their children” (Maté 275). He thinks children would rely on opiates to comfort their deepest emotions; it would be a best solution to escape their lonely world. For that reason, Maté confirms addicts usually blame themselves for “stupid decision” (Maté 275) after being suffered of drug starvation. In the last paragraph, Maté concludes his essay by stating “that is the great wound of all” (275),

Although, there are many efforts to reduce the stigma of addiction, false concepts among individuals still persist. Many individuals may describe drug addicts as “people who are morally weak and cannot control their impulses”, or simply just “people who cannot get their life together”. Such misconceptions suggesting that

Addiction can be a very troubling experience for the addict and those involved in their life. However, each individual’s journey with drug addiction is a personal one. Angela Garcia studied a clinic in New Mexico to better understand drug addiction and the detoxification process. Her task in this study is evident when she states ” I understood my task as an anthropologist to conjure up the social life that produced these signs, to give it flesh and depth, that is why I went to New Mexico to study heroin- to try to give purpose and meaning to an aspect of American Life that had become dangerously ordinary, even cliché.”(5, Garcia) She is clearly there to learn and then interpret that which she finds. In observing she is doing what Roberta Edwards

Introduction Addiction is represented in media in various forms. Books, movies and television depict characters in countless stages of addiction and treatment. These characters’ actions mimic the daily struggles of living with and overcoming substance or behavior addition. I selected the television show “Shameless” for the exploration of addiction and the psychosocial impact of living with an addiction. Several of the characters in this series cope daily with one or more forms of addiction, but for the purpose of this case study I am focusing on one character, Fiona Gallagher.

Alexis Neiers feared the physical symptoms of withdrawal, she knew them well her first detox took place in her jail cell. Far more terrifying for Alexis than the physical withdrawals was the end of the “numbness” of the drugs. Without heroin she would have to face the realities of the abuse she had faced as a child no longer being able to block out the traumatic event of her past. Neiers drug abuse as a coping method with childhood sexual abuse is an indicative symptom of some degree of post- traumatic stress disorder. Neiers is amongst those with post-traumatic stress syndrome who had gone without treatment and chose instead to self-medicate. (Breslau, N.

After reviewing the article written by Lisa Moore, I began to reflect upon how I would incorporate empathy in my interactions with a client during the assessment phase of therapy. Empathy in a nutshell is attempting to match your feelings or current state of mind with that of another individual. In our field, empathy is of the utmost importance. It allows the speech-language pathologist (SLP) to meet clients where they are, to enter their world, and truly understand what it feels like to be them. SLP’s must not only view the client from an external frame of reference, but they must attempt to extract the client’s thoughts, feelings, ideas, beliefs, and values before and whilst administering an assessment protocol. There are several ways in