Episode Of Intervention Paper

This episode of intervention was about Melissa and her drug addiction and abuse. Melissa is a single mom who is 32 years old. She first started her drug habits at the age of 16 when she tried marijuana for the first time. Eventually when her drug of choice didn’t do it enough for her she went to newer drugs to get a better and new type of high. When Melissa was pregnant she stayed sober. Even after her son was born she was sober for a year or so. But when her dad came back into her life she found out that he had been a drug addict his whole life. When the family found this out they shut him out which caused Melissa to spiral out of control. The drug that they mainly talk about in the episode that Melissa is addicted to is crack cocaine which is classified as a stimulant drug in the "Major Types of Commonly Abused Drugs". How Melissa gets this type of drug is by selling her body so that she can get paid to buy or gets paid by crack.
Some biological based factors Melissa has are; tendency to amplify outside or internal stimuli and difficulty in screening out unwanted or bothersome outside stimuli. We see tendency to amplify outside or internal stimuli this happen when she enters the room for
the intervention when she feels she's being attacked. We see difficulty in screening out unwanted or bothersome outside stimuli when Melissa can't stay away from crack and leaves rehab to go back to her old habits.
Some psychosocial factors Melissa has are; low self-esteem and conflict.
Low self-esteem in Melissa's story I would say is because growing up she never had a father figure around because her dad left but also the men her mother dated weren't all the great. They also believe that Melissa was abused by the men that were with her mom which could cause many problems besides low self-esteem. We see Melissa low self-esteem right in the episode though when she tell her mom that she just gets high to get away and that she can't do it anymore. Melissa has many internal conflicts we see this with in the clip of the intervention when she isnt open to rehab until the interventionist reads the letter from her son colby. THis is because she has so much guilt inside her for losing her
son.
Some social and cultural factors that Melissa has are; availability of drugs, alientation factors, severe or chronic stressor, and mispreception of peer norms. Availability of drugs for Melissa is endless especially since she started selling her body. Melissa knows she can go to certain guys and get paid to sleep with them. Then once she gets paid she uses all that money to buy crack. Alientation factors that Melissa experience was when her son was taken away from her and could see him definitely caused problems for her. Severe or chronic stressor in Melissa's story would be her dad coming back into her life, then leaving again as well as her son being taken away from her, being put into and intervention and then from their going to rehab. Finally, Mispreception of peer norms in the episode we see melissa joining with this guy brax and they play as a couple to hook up with other couples to get paid so they can buy crack together. We also see Melisssa at soemones house with peers of hers and she asks a friend if they can get her GHB because she just wants to try it out.
I chose to use the Social influence theory to look at Melissa and her addiction. What the social influence theory looks at is the person's day-to-day social relations as a primary cause for drug use. The social influence theory believes that drug use is learned just like other behaviors. This type of learning occurs through interactions with primary and secondary groups. A person's primary group are the people they engage with every day with. An example of this would be family and friend. Then a person's secondary group would be someone you encounter with just not on a daily basis. An example of this would be a friend of a friends or a family member who may not be a part of your immediate family. Parental and peers take a big part in this influence and learning. Parental influence happens in your earlier stages of life especially those who have parents who were around their kids and were also addicted to some type of drug. This type of learning could be positive or negative towards the child just depending. In some instances, the child may go towards drugs because they always saw one or both parents and never knew anything different. On the other hand, though a child may stay away from drugs because they have seen how badly it has affect the individual and their family. Peer influence though happens at a later part in life when you are in middle or high school. At this time in children's lives they don’t listen to what their parents have to say they just want to be cool like their friends and will sometimes get caught up into drugs because they think their friends are doing drugs or their friends offer them drugs.
When looking at Melissa's story I do believe that her primary group had something to do with it. Her father left her family when she was 6 months old. She grew up with a single mother who had many men around her. Melissa even stated that her first memory is have a fork stabbed into her hand by a gentleman that was with her mother. It was also stated that the family thinks Melissa was abused by the men that were with her mother. Just right there this could cause issues for someone growing up. On top of that how Melissa got into drugs were from friends when she was in high school at the age of 16. Since then the people she has associated with and had around her are people who are also addicts or drug dealers. Also, when Melissa found out that her dad was an addicted to drug it sent her back to addiction and this could be because she feels that it is a part of her. If her dad did it then she can too even though he wasn’t around for her life.