Counseling Multicultural and Diverse Populations Essay

Essay: Assessing Gender Issues in Substance

For this assignment, you will identify a real person (yourself or someone you know well) who has struggled with addiction. You will answer a series of questions about this person to demonstrate your understanding of the ways that gender impacts addiction and recovery. If you have not personally struggled with alcohol or other addictive substances (including tobacco) and you do not know anyone who has, contact your instructor for further direction.

For this assignment you will write an essay of 500 to 750 words.

Instructions:

After reading your textbook and other assigned readings for this lesson, identify a person whom you know well who is struggling (or has struggled) with a substance use problem. Your subject must be a real person; it can be you, a family member, or a close friend. You must know enough about the person to be able to identify gender-related issues in his/her life and to consider how these issues may have impacted the development of substance abuse problems.

In your essay, you must include the following information:

1. Describe the age, gender, and social circumstances of the person's life. Is the person employed? Unemployed? Caring for children or other family members?

2. Describe how and when the person first began to use substances. What events or circumstances do you think contributed to the first use?

3. Describe the ways that the person's alcohol/drug use has affected his/her life. Pay special attention to the gender-related issues that you have read about in this lesson.

4. Based on what you have read in Lesson 7, identify gender-related issues that have affected this person's development of substance abuse problems in the following areas:

a. Worldview, self-image, values, and communication

b. Co-occurring disorders

c. Socioeconomic issues and discrimination related to gender

d. Circumstances surrounding first use of alcohol and subsequent development of problems

e. Issues that need to be addressed in counseling

5. Your essay must show evidence that you understand gender-related issues in the development and expression of substance abuse problems in the person you are describing.

6. You must include specific in-text citations and corresponding end-references from each of the two chapters and two supplemental readings for Lesson 7, for a total of four citations and four references. You must cite page numbers for the information in your citations.