ASSIGNMENT | Opioid Use, Addiction, and Overdoses:

Read pages 177 – 189 in your text.
Opioid use, addiction, and overdoses have increased to alarming rates in the United States in recent years. Millions of Americans are affected by the opioid epidemic every day. Read Volkow et al.’s (2014) article and pages 1-4 in Brown’s (2018) article before discussing the following questions:
For this week’s main post, answer the following questions. Be sure to include factual, properly cited information in your post.
What are some ways that opioid addiction is affecting the United States?
What are some forms of treatment available to those suffering from opioid addiction?
If you had a friend or family member suffering from opioid addiction, what sort of help would you recommend they seek?
References:
Brown, A. R. (2018). A systematic review of psychosocial interventions in treatment of opioid addiction, Journal of Social Work Practice in the Addictions. Advance online publication. doi:10.1080/1533256X.2018.1485574

Coon, D., Mitterer, J.O., & Martini, T. (2019). Introduction to psychology: Gateways to mind and behavior (15th ed.). Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning.

Volkow, N. D., Frieden, T. R., Hyde, P. S., & Cha, S. S. (2014). Medication-assisted therapies — tackling the opioid-overdose epidemic. New England Journal of Medicine, 370(22), 2063-2066. doi:10.1056/NEJMp1402780
PSY1012 Week 2 Discussion Brown-2018.pdf
PSY1012 Week Two Discussion Volkow-2014.pdf

SAMPLE SOLUTION

Opioids continues to be used to help treat pain. However, their prolonged use can result in the reduction of their efficiency in reducing pain. Besides, opioids can result in an addiction such that the body response to pain is impaired unless opioids are used (Coon et al., 2019). Furthermore, opioid dependence results in withdrawal symptoms that makes it hard for one to stop using them. There are many ways though which the use of opioids has affected the US. Firstly, there is a general opioid misuse among users where instances of overdose are being reported. There are also increased cases of newborns experiencing withdrawal syndromes…