October 7, 2009
A Health Instructor in the Most Financially Challenged Parochial High School in the State Teaches Her Pupils About the Relevance of Alcohol Dependency Signs
Miss Benning was a health instructor at the most underfinanced private high school in the region. Although she had been teaching for only five years, she had already gained a reputation as an educator with teaching approaches that motivated and stimulated pupils to learn and to think.
For instance, one Tuesday afternoon at 1:00 she addressed the pupils in her classroom and articulated the following: “For the next four or five days we are going to learn about some basic alcoholism facts from a general point of view and we are also going to learn about a number of the best known signs of alcoholism from a less general and more detailed point of view.”
“Not all of these alcoholism signs will absolutely establish that a drinker with a drinking problem is an alcohol addicted person, but the more signs that a drinker displays, the stronger the probability that he or she is an alcohol dependent individual.”
Miss Benning then explained to the class that each individual would be responsible for investigating three alcohol dependence signs and then presenting his or her results to the other members in the class via a thirty minute oral presentation.
The Students are Energized About Giving An In-Depth Presentation to Their Fellow Pupils About Alcohol Dependency Signs
After learning about the diverse signs of alcoholism for several days, the time had come for the individual presentations. It was immediately noticeable that the students in her class were excited about the subject matter because the information that they presented was extraordinary. To say that Miss Benning was pleasantly surprised with the interest exhibited by the students in her class regarding this topic could not be overstated.
The day after all of the pupils completed their presentations, Miss Benning passed out a sheet of paper with a list of all the alcohol addiction signs that were presented and discussed in the presentations and in class. Miss Benning then asked the students in her classroom to study the list and rank the top six alcoholism signs that were most indicative of alcoholism. After approximately five minutes, Miss Benning collected the sheets of paper and told her students that after she assesses the results, she will reveal her findings the next school day.
There was a real buzz by the pupils while they were leaving Miss Benning’s classroom. One could swear that her students couldn’t wait for the next day to arrive so that they could learn about the outcome of their in-class research.
The Students Match Their Results Against the Findings From A Board of Substance Abuse Experts
When the next school day arrived, Miss Benning handed out a sheet of paper that listed the top three alcoholism signs according to the pupils’ rankings. To the left of these results, she added another column that was labeled “correct answer.” She then informed her students that the numbers in the second column she added were the answers that were stated by a team of alcohol dependency specialists.
Miss Benning asked her students to go over the data on the piece of paper she handed out and then to raise their hand if they had any concerns, issues, or questions. Within a minute or two, almost every pupil in the classroom raised her or his hand. It was clear to see that the pupils had some issues, concerns, or questions about their results versus the answers given by the experts. As an illustration, just about every person in the class disagreed with the highest ranked answer given by the specialists, to be precise, “Do you feel unusually ill when you stop drinking?”
The Central Difference Between Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse is the Physical Addiction That is Experienced With Alcohol Dependency and Not With Alcohol Abuse
Miss Benning then explained to the pupils in her class why this answer was the most precise sign of alcohol dependency. She underlined the fact that the key difference between alcoholism and alcohol abuse is the physical dependency that is experienced with alcohol dependency and not with alcohol abuse.
In effect this means that when an individual who is addicted to alcohol all of a sudden quits drinking, he or she will go through alcohol withdrawal symptoms.
Miss Benning then told the students in her class that alcohol withdrawal symptoms are responses by the brain and by the body to the lack of alcohol to which they had become acclimated. Stated more explicitly, alcohol withdrawal symptoms are signals from the brain and from the body telling an individual who is alcohol dependent that something is exceedingly wrong and needs to be fixed. These messages consist of a number of dangerous, uncomfortable, and painful withdrawal symptoms that can potentially result in a fatality if the appropriate therapy is not promptly received.
Miss Benning then listed the multitude of alcohol withdrawal symptoms that can be gone through when an alcohol dependent person abruptly quits drinking.
The fact that Miss Benning tried to underline was this: a person who engages in alcohol abuse can experience almost any and every one of the alcohol addiction signs that the students had ranked, but the one sign or symptom that few, if any, people who engage in alcohol abuse ever experience is alcohol withdrawal symptoms.
To state this as precisely as possible, Miss Benning stressed the point that alcohol abusers, unlike alcohol addicted individuals, are not alcohol dependent and consequently, when they stop drinking, they almost never suffer from alcohol withdrawal symptoms.
The Students Feel They Have Discovered An Abnormality With the Findings From The Group of Alcohol Addiction Experts
The students also disagreed with the second ranked answer given by the alcoholism experts, to be exact, “Have you ever had a drink the first thing in the morning to get rid of a hangover or to steady your nerves?”
Miss Benning told the students in her class that this sign does not necessarily mean that the problem is alcohol dependency, but that it does stress the need that people who are alcohol dependent have to drink in order to stay away from alcohol withdrawal symptoms.
After Miss Benning explained the significance of alcohol withdrawal symptoms in the life of the alcoholic, the students started to understand the basic difference between alcohol abuse and alcohol dependency.
To add a sense of closure to the topic, Miss Benning asked the students in her class to take out a piece of paper and answer the following question: “if every person who is addicted to alcohol knew about every one of the alcohol withdrawal symptoms and alcohol addiction signs we have studied, what percentage of them do you think would obtain alcohol treatment?”
After approximately three or four minutes, Miss Benning asked for the students’ answers. While many pupils believed that approximately 80 to 90 percent of alcohol addicted people would ask for alcoholism rehabilitation if they knew about the facts related to alcoholism signs and alcohol withdrawal symptoms, most of the students believed that this number would not be less than 65 percent.
The Students Were Amazed to Find Out That Only 25% of Individuals Who are Addicted to Alcohol in the U.S. Get Alcohol Rehabilitation
To the amazement of most of the pupils, Miss Benning mentioned that according to the research literature, only 25% of the alcohol dependent individuals in the United States get alcohol dependency treatment. This shocked most of the pupils because they thought that exposure to the appalling statistics and facts related to alcoholism would motivate the majority of the people who are addicted to alcohol to obtain alcohol addiction rehab.
Miss Benning then explained that alcohol dependent people not only need alcohol on an everyday basis in order to function but they also require alcohol on a daily basis so they can steer clear of possible alcohol withdrawal symptoms. Clearly, the alcoholic’s need to drink on a daily basis is stronger than facts or logic. As a matter of fact, due to the fact that the need for alcohol is “reality” to the alcoholic, this is a challenging issue that is hard to counteract.
A few minutes later the bell rang, indicating the end of the class. Based on the excitement displayed by the students when they were leaving the classroom, Miss Benning knew that she had encouraged and inspired the students in her classroom to stop and think about a significant health and social problem that exists in our culture.
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