We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
The Peer Principle: The Key to Addiction Treatment.
- Authors
Riessman, Frank
- Abstract
This article discusses the significance of the peer principle in addiction treatment. Peer drug education programs for youth are far more effective than bringing adult role models or law enforcement officers into classrooms to prevent drug use. Young people are more likely to listen to their peers on the subject of drugs, for good or for ill. And the young people who volunteer to educate their peers gain a special benefit. Their advocacy for not using drugs on their own ability to stay away from illicit and damaging substances. In applying the helper-therapy principle, the helper gains more from involvement in the program than the people being helped. The Partnership for a Drug Free America and other campaigns directed primarily at parents will fail because they violate the peer principle. The Therapeutic Community approach to treating addiction has had notable successes, but often at such great cost that there is a severe shortage of treatment slots. Therapeutic Communities make tremendous use of recovering drug addicts to help users seeking recovery, another excellent application of the peer principle. Alternative medical approaches to end addiction are also gaining ground, notably acupuncture programs such as Michael Smith's at the Lincoln Hospital Center in the Bronx, New York.
- Subjects
AGE groups; DRUG abuse treatment; YOUTH &; drugs; PEOPLE in recovery from drug addiction; PEOPLE with drug addiction
- Publication
Social Policy, 1998, Vol 29, Issue 2, p10
- ISSN
0037-7783
- Publication type
Article