Amy’s Description
Amy is a 53-year-old married female of Caucasian origin with two children aged 15 and 17. She has been assessed with alcoholism, which started in college, where she also found her husband. Though she has a career as a top agent in her field, together with her husband, they have offered their family a financially secure home. Due to numerous children’s activities and rotating work schedules, Amy has not had quality time with her husband. Her alcoholism is severe: she drinks severally a week, every evening after work, to the point of passing out on the couch. She calls it a part-time job and often finds herself wrangling with her husband and believes the children are disinterested in her. After a challenging childhood, she is angry with the concept of God and is furious when her mother tells her to pray. Alcoholism has left her struggling with women’s friendships and work. She believes she is trapped and will not get better.
Joe’s Description
Joe is 62 years old, he is a white homosexual male who is admitted to a local treatment center for detox after being assessed for alcohol dependence. He is a professor of biology in a town in his college, can support a decent lifestyle, and leads a lonely life with only a few friends. Joe commenced drinking alcohol at 16 years old. He only announced that he was homosexual when he was 50 years after the death of his parents.
He was the only child from a small religious town and grew up in an era that lacked compassion and tolerance for diverse family types. His parents never understood why he was single and condemned a lifestyle that was different from their own. Since he was 25 to 45 years old, Joe had a secret life partner who, in the mid-’80s, when there were no successful anti-viral medications, died of aids. Owing to the fear of prejudice from his upbringing, he mourned his life partner silently and led a secluded life where no one knew he was gay.
Applying a Biopsychosocial-Spiritual Treatment Approach
The biopsychosocial-spiritual treatment Approach would apply to each of them by understanding their addiction as an intricate disorder involving social, spiritual, biological, and psychological treatment. In addition, culture, age, and gender will be imperative to their effective treatment. Statistics indicate that white young adults between 16 to 25 years in America are at the top of alcohol use (Denend et al., 2022). This cultural aspect helps illustrate why Joe commenced drinking at 16. On the other hand, Amy is a Hispanic who started drinking socially at 16. Her case is backed by statistics that indicate a high prevalence of Alcohol use among Hispanics of this age at 27.5% (Denend et al., 2022). Spiritually and psychologically, there are indicators of both Amy’s and Joe’s alcoholism and alcohol dependence that will be key in using the approach.
For Amy, alcohol has caused psychological issues, she feels stuck and trusts it will not get better. Additionally, a challenging childhood left her to question the concept of God. The approach will involve inculcating in her the advantages of having well-planned schedules and how this will alleviate her problems, including quarreling with her husband (Horton & Luna, 2016).
For Joe, Psychological reasons might be the cause of his addiction. He is homosexual, which his society is strongly against, and comes from an intolerant religious town. Here the approach will illustrate to Joe the importance of conforming to society and how this can help solve his solitude issue, which contributes to his alcohol dependence (Capuzzi & Stauffer, 2020). Gender is also associated with certain roles in society, males are seen as providers while females should perform house chores, and the two are unable to perform their genders assigned roles with alcohol at the center of it. Amy does not have adequate time with his husband, while Joe is a homosexual. Illustrating to them both to conform to these genders’ assigned roles will be an instrumental part of the approach.
How Addiction Impacts the Physical, Emotional, Social, and Spiritual Well-Being
Alcohol adversely affects the emotional, social, spiritual, and physical health of the addict. In both Amy’s and Joe’s cases, these effects are clear. Emotionally and socially, both are finding it hard to maintain relationships. Amy sleeps and wakes up on the couch in the middle of the night and wrangles with her husband. She also finds it hard to discover life outside of parenting and work. Joe’s emotional and social impacts are even worse: he grew up in a highly conservative society where divergent lifestyles are not allowed. This has an adverse emotional influence on him, he feels secluded and socially distances himself. His parents are unaware of his sexual orientation and do not know he has a lover. Amy is more spiritually debilitated and does not want any advice to pray.
How Their Differences Will Influence Treatment Approaches
An integrated and effective biopsychosocial-spiritual treatment approach offers dignity, respect, and hope. Treating both Amy and Joe will undoubtedly require a personalized approach for each. For Amy, the intervention will ensure she understands that she will get better and does not feel trapped. This will require offering hope and guidance by indicating the pains she is going through due to alcohol consumption. Thus, if she stops, she will be able to have time for family and work. This will reduce her struggles, and she will appreciate God (Blakey, 2016). On the other hand, for Joe, hope and guidance will be offered by showing him that his failure to conform to society has resulted in his alcoholism. Therefore, to effectively stop alcohol dependency, he must view society as his acquittance.
References
Blakey, J. M. (2016). The role of spirituality in helping African American women with histories of trauma and substance abuse heal and recover. Social Work and Christianity, 43(1), 40-59. Web.
Capuzzi, D., & Stauffer, M. D. (2020). Foundations of addictions counseling (4th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson Education, Inc.
Horton, E. G., & Luna, N. (2016). Spirituality in the treatment of substance use disorders: Proposing the Three-legged Stool as a model for intervention. Journal of Religion & Spirituality in Social Work: Social Thought, 35(3), 179-199. Web.
Van Denend, J., Ford, K., Berg, P. et al.The Body, the Mind, and the Spirit: Including the Spiritual Domain in Mental Health Care. J Relig Health, 61, 3571–3588 (2022). Web.