Healthcare Training Institute - Quality Education since 1979
Psychologist, Social Worker, Counselor, & MFT!!

Section 1
Track #1 - Introduction

Question 1 found at the bottom of this page
Answer Booklet | Table of Contents
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Welcome to the Home Study Course sponsored by the Healthcare Training Institute, homestudycredit.com.  This deals with addictions. 

Our primary intent for this home study course is to provide quality education to foster your professional growth.  The Institute has provided quality education since 1979.
 
Hi.  My name is James Brennen.  I will be the narrator of this CD set.  We appreciate that you have chosen us as a vehicle for you to earn your Continuing Education Credit.

The purpose of the course is to assist you in increasing your knowledge regarding how to treat patients, clients, etc. dealing with addictions.  As each case study is given, if the concepts seem to be applicable to your situation, I encourage you to turn your CD player off and make a few notes regarding the application of the principle to your setting.  However, these notes are for your purposes only and are not to be sent to the Institute.  Also each track is very content dense.  So feel free to replay the track to review the content either for your own purposes, or if you feel appropriate play the track in an individual or group session for client education.  Also permission is granted to reproduce this CD.  We encourage you to duplicate give copies of this CD to colleagues, clients, etc. as you deem appropriate. We feel the information on our CD's is valuable.  Thus, we have an interest in distributing CD's in as many ways as possible, to benefit the greatest number of people, who have a need and are receptive to this practical information.

The questions in your Answer Booklet are sequential and deal with the section of content that preceded it.  For this reason, to facilitate the answering of each question, you might read the question from the Answer Booklet prior to listening to that CD track.  By knowing what the question is ahead of time, you will then know the content to listen for that contains the answer.  So just a hint, after you write down the answer to a question in your Answer Booklet, read on to the next question in order to give you a “heads up” to listen for the content that contains the answer to the next question.

Merely write the correct letter on the corresponding blank line in your answer booklet. Each answer is only used once. Keep in mind there is nothing trick or hard about these questions.  They are merely intended to verify the playing of this CD.

For the purpose of brevity, most generally, I will use the term “therapists” or “mental health professional.”  However, don’t let these terms deter you from applying the concepts to your situations.  When you hear the word “therapists,” if your job title is social worker, psychologist, marriage and family therapist, mental health counselor, professional counselor, resident director, program assistant, etc. merely substitute the appropriate term that is the most meaningful to you. In short, don’t let my use of the term “therapists” cognitively set you off track from hearing the content because your job title is school counselor, for example.  I will also use the term “client” for the purposes of brevity.  However, if you deal with patients, residents, students, consumers, etc., transpose “client” for the term that is the most meaningful to you in your work setting. 

On this CD set we will discuss such topics as: the addiction process, the internal war, overcoming resistance, the fear of self-awareness, the six steps of effective choice, risk-taking, causes of relapse, the dream of dependency, internal resistance, why step one works, how the 12 steps impede autonomy, addiction to the program, and Being treated as a family asset.

So  let’s get started

On the rest of this track to make sure we are on the same page so to speak, we will talk about the physical effects of alcohol on your client’s body.

When Erik, age 24, a computer programmer, came to my office, he ssullenly asked, “Boy do I feel like carp.  I seems like the more I drink the worse I feel.  I used to be able to get a really nice buzz… you know what I mean.  But now I just feel crappy.”

Erik had been in and out of recovery. But Within a month, Erik would be back drinking. He stated, “I’ve been drinking since I was 13.  Sometimes I get a little sluggish, but I really don’t think the drinking has affected me all that much, at least not physically.”

Knowing his education and background in computers I felt he might be receptive to a presentation of some facts about the destructive effects of alcohol on his body, I asked him, “Would you like to know some of the facts as to alcohol affects your nervous, digestive, musclular systems?” He looked thoughtful and a little surprised for a moment, then reluctantly nodded “yeah, I guess.”

“Regarding your nervous system. Using alcohol over a long period of time changes the balance of your brain’s chemistry. By that I mean As the receptors are filled with those foreign substances, your body’s own chemical transmitters can’t stimulate the cell properly, leading to delayed, inappropriate, or even an absence of the reaction. This hinderance of the transmitters leads to that sluggish feeling you were talking about earlier.”

Do you have  client that you are currently treating that might benefit from information about the effect of alcohol on his or her nervous system?

Erik still seemed interested, so I went on, “As far as your digestive system, goes. Three bands of muscles in your stomach work like a blender to break up bits of food while your stomach acid helps dissolve the food. The stomach is naturally protected from the stomach acid by mucus, but inflammation occurs when the alcohol decreases the stomach’s ability to prevent acid from backing up into the walls. That may be one reason why you stated that Rolaids is a food group for you.”

How many client are you currently treating that pop stomach acid tablet during your session.  Would this information about the effect of alcohol on their digestive track be beneficial?

“Your Bones and muscles are affected by nutritional deficiencies and the toxic effect of alcohol. You have said you experience muscle pain in you upper arms and shoulders.”

Erik stated, “Go on. This all makes sense. I never connect this with drinking” “As you know, your heart pumps blood throughout your body. But alcohol affects your cardiovascular system by affecting its ability to function as a pump. This is not meant to scare you, but the fact is some alcoholics experience congestive heart failure and rhythm disturbances resulting from a leaking of potassium, phosphate and important enzymes from the heart muscle.”

Would it be appropriate to share this fact about leaking potassium phosphate and important enzymes from the heart muscle with a client you are currently treating?

When Erik heard the information about the heart, he stated, “ My father died of a heart attack two years ago. He was a heavy drinker. I don’t see how there’s a connection.”

Since this seemed to be the “teachable moment” for Erik regarding the destructive effect of alcohol on his body, I suggested he might keep a written or mental log of physical symptoms he experiences between now and his next session. The fact that his father died of a heart attack seemed to be a leverage point of interest to potentially consider stopping drinking. Do you have an Erik who deals in computers, accounting, business decisions, et cetera, where facts and figures are the main stay of their thought process? Would it be beneficial to replay the preceding portion of this track during your next session? Would keeping a health journal for a week be beneficial?

On this track we have discussed the physical effects of alcohol on a body. On the next track we will talk about addiction as a process.

QUESTION 1
What are bodily systems for which you might provide alcohol education if your addicted client is receptive to being provided with the facts? To select and enter your answer go to Answer Booklet.