Online Class: Drug and Alcohol Abuse 101

Course Lessons

• Lesson 1: Drug and Alcohol Abuse -- Awareness, Counseling, and Prevention

  An introduction to the causes, consequences, and solutions related to the persistent culture of addiction in today's society.

• Lesson 2: Availability of Drugs

  You may wonder how illegal drugs end up in the hands of kids. Old films showed us seedy characters in dark trench coats offering evil drugs to innocent children.

• Lesson 3: Why Do Humans Abuse Substances?

  People choose to alter their consciousness for hundreds of reasons. The use of drugs and alcohol to get high is not a new phenomenon, even though today's choices may be more varied.

• Lesson 4: Dependence and Addiction

  It is important to know that addiction has been studied extensively. Abuse of substances does not necessarily imply addiction.

• Lesson 5: Effects of Use and Dependency -- Potential Social Consequences of Substance Abuse

  It could be argued that abuse of substances is a personal choice. If an individual chooses to compromise his or her own health and quality of life, can we just take the attitude of "live and let live?"

• Lesson 6: Prevention in the Home

  In this course, we will touch on programs and methods that have been deemed most successful by schools and parenting organizations.

• Lesson 7: Schools

  Approximately 80 percent of our country's public school systems have implemented some kind of drug prevention program. Many have been discontinued due to budget cuts, and some have been eliminated because they simply have not worked.

• Lesson 8: Workplace Prevention

  Of the 20.4 million adults classified with substance dependence or abuse, 12.3 million (60.4 percent) were employed full-time.

• Lesson 9: Assessment and Intervention

  Assessment involves a number of questions about drug and alcohol use, including current use and use in the past, as well as the level and consistency of use.

• Lesson 10: Treatment

  When we can accept that addiction is actually a disease, we can approach its treatment much like we would approach treating other chronic diseases, like diabetes or asthma.

• Lesson 11: Following Up

  Recovery does not end when rehab is over. There is a high rate of relapse after rehabilitation, and rehab clinicians and counselors are aware of the odds.