Model Interventions in Alcoholism and Challenges in Evaluation

[John Packiaraj]

Greetings from John

 

I have worked and researched among persons who inject drugs and alcoholics and their family members. Subsequently I have attempted to mainstream addiction in all the projects I have been working so far. I have created drug prevention awareness building among the school and college students. I intend to further purse my career.

 

Alcoholism has become the root cause of many other problems in the family. In Tamilnadu, women who are widows due to the death of alcoholic husbands and the affected children come to the streets to fight against the alcoholism. The men who are the heads of the families, the women whose family life is disturbed due to drunkard husbands is the focus. Also, there needs good intervention for children who cannot concentrate on studies and potentially become second generation alcoholics.

I need exposure to research projects that clearly demonstrate the need to prevent drugs/alcoholism. In the event of total ban on it, the revenue loss is inevitable. But there is a greater social, psychological and medical gain to the addict, his environment and nation as a whole needs to be proved to the government. I need to be enabled to know the effect on health of the alcoholic, personal choice and the environment in order to develop programs that protect the health of the family and community

Hence I like to know the kinds of interventions/best practices and researches in substance/alcohol abuse together with the challenges involved in monitoring and evaluation?

 

[Ranjani K.Murthy]

Dear John

I feel peer sharing of how somebody from the same mileu has has given by abuse helps, and support when the person wants to go for de-addiction. I know of Arumugam- who irons clothes for living- who helped his relative do so. Children appealing to their addicted parent also helps. I strongly believe that the liquour shops should be open on lesser number of days. Working with youth at a young age may help, and including this issue in school text books. 

You may like to study the liqour policies of different states- as banning it may lead to illicit liquour consumption.   

Best 

Ranjani

PS: John you may like to rethink the notion of men as heads of household. We want to move towards joint headship or collective headship of family

 

[Paudyal, Dhruba Prasad]

Dear John,

Good idea. May I expect a comparative study for different environments. It is the same thing that works very well in one environment (in high income environments) whereas the same yields losing even life at the other (in less developed environments). What happens if the time of sale varied and licensing incorporated. Can there be an environment without alcohol?

Hope your research shall be very fruitful for families that are vulnerable due to addicted counterparts and families deepen in poverty.

Paudyal

[Rituu B Nanda]

Dear John,

I worked with drug users in Nagaland where we used a strength-based approach called community life competence. Here is a story of change http://aidscompetence.ning.com/profiles/blogs/how-a-drug-user-became-a

Read more about the approach at http://communitylifecompetence.org/en/

Warm regards,

Rituu