Name:

Course:

Lecturer:

Date:

Topic: Alcohol as a high risk condition and associated behavior and patterns

High risk drinking of alcohol can be looked at in two distinct ways. One definition is the drinking that makes the person that is taking the alcohol to indulge in actions and behavior that will make him take a lot of alcohol and consequently intoxicate him more which in the end will cause harm to himself or the people that are around him. The other point of view that this behavior can be viewed from is demarcated by the high risk patterns that will be concomitant with the high risk drinking. These patterns will include taking a lot of alcohol and the frequency that the alcohol is taken, the predisposition for tolerance that exists, how early a person starts drinking, the existence of a social support system that encourages this drinking and in some instances a family history of drinking can be defined as a risk factor too.

There are several high risk drinking behaviors that lead to a variety of outcomes that are generally negative. These behaviors include but are not limited to taking part in drinking games that will involve chugging the drinks, using funnels and playing beer pong like many people do when they are having drinking parties. Drinking with the aim of getting drunk and afterwards driving or riding with an intoxicated person is also a high risk behavior. When drinking, the rate at which one drinks also matters and therefore drinking too much will be considered as an example of a high risk behavior and so is going to parties that everyone there is involved in binge drinking.

Most prescriptions clearly give the instruction that the person that will be taking the drugs should not take alcohol as long as he is on medication since different drugs react differently with alcohol and some if they mix may have consequences that are fatal. Combining alcohol with other drugs and even caffeine is also a high risk behavior since the outcome of how this drugs will react with the alcohol in the system cannot be predicted and in some instances cannot be controlled either. More often than not, the risk that is normally associated with these behavior will manifest themselves in the form of injuries that the person that has been drinking will sustain, hospitalization from poisoning that will be as a result of taking too much alcohol and even damage to property or being arrested by the authorities for crimes that are done under the influence.

High risk patterns are clearly defined and can easily be identified since they are simple thing like taking part on drinking sprees frequently and taking more alcohol than the rest of the people do at a time. This will generally lead to tolerance to the alcohol and therefore it will take more alcohol to make the same person drunk and this threshold will keep on increasing with every indulgence.

to drink at a young age is also a clear risk pattern as when the person gets older the drinking will become more regular and eventually may increase such that the person will be taking a lot of alcohol during these regular drinking sessions and dependence occurs (Heather, Nick, and Tim Stockwell, 196). Families that have a had a history with alcohol often rub this effects on the children that grew up in them and eventually they may start drinking without having clear limits of where to stop or without knowing that they have had enough.

There are also situations that the drinker will see that the situations that make him drink more do not come from within him but are defined by the policies that are in place for different purposes like regulating the consumption of alcohol and this is a bad sign since it means that the person that is drinking does not have control over the habit.

High risk drinking patterns also manifest themselves when peers in a peer group develop the feeling that their peers have the threshold to drink more than they can and thus the struggle to drink as much alcohol as their peers do leading to situations that may have a bad ending. There is also the group that looks at alcohol as a way of showing the freedom that they have acquired in society and this mainly happens to the young people who are enrolled in the universities and colleges.

A family that is characterized by people that drink alcohol and exhibit high risk patterns and behavior may be problematic and may bring about a situation that will be difficult for the children that are in it to grow up. For example, a mother that engages in high risk drinking will not be setting a good example for her daughter if she will not be able to cook and take care of her children as a result of this. If she has a baby, the baby will be affected by the milk that it will be breastfeeding if the mother will drink while breastfeeding.

A father that has a habit of high risk drinking may not be in a position to adequately provide for the family and also sets an example to the children of a care free attitude. This kind of behavior also brings ridicule to the children when they are among their peer. If in any case there are teenagers in the family and they are also engaged in this type of drinking, there are consequences and outcomes that are damaging and some permanent. Since high risk drinking can lead one to having sexual encounters that are careless, the teenagers may find themselves being parents at a very tender age. There is also the risk of contracting various venereal diseases and also Aids that will come as a result of having unprotected sexual relations since taking too much alcohol impairs decision making and rational thinking.

Healthy People 2010 objectives for high risk drinking

Healthy People 2010 incorporate several objectives that it aims to meet to make people’s lives much healthier and these include objectives that are aimed at reducing the total number of new infections in the world. There are various sources of new infections and high risk drinking is one of them since the people that will be taking part in this high risk drinking in most cases will not be careful with the sexual relations that they will take part in and this can lead to them contracting the disease (Healthypeople.gov 1).

There is also an objective that seeks to reduce the number of adolescents who have been forced to ride with an adult that was consuming alcohol during the previous one month so that this kind of high risk behavior can be tamed to avoid cases of accidents as a result of drinking while driving.

Healthy people 2010 also hope to reduce the number of deaths that occur as a result of problems that with the liver such as cirrhosis whose main cause is excessive drinking of alcohol. This will be achieved by education people of the consequences that are expected when large volumes are consumed since this puts a strain on the liver and consequently results in cirrhosis that leads to death.

Nursing intervention strategies

Brief alcohol interventions are counseling frameworks that are limited by time that usually put emphasis on the change of behavior and making sure that it increases the compliance for treatment. This is usually used to encourage the users that are not yet addicted and dependent on alcohol to reduce its consumption to the levels that are low risk and they can also help in referring those that need help since they are already dependent or addicted to programs that will help them reduce drinking. This program is designed to the care givers that will have a limited time with the people that they are supposed to help and are designed to serve places that a lot of people frequent such as general primary care settings. It is usually a precise set of rules that is mainly clinician directed and puts emphasis on convincing the patients in very few visits to reduce the amount of alcohol that they consume (Maisto et al., 387).

Role of the advanced practice nurse as a case manager in high risk drinking

An advanced practice nurse is a specialized nurse that can perform some duties that are the preserve of physicians and each advanced specialized nurse has a specific role and they are allowed to write prescriptions for medicine. In the case of treating a patient with a high risk drinking problem, the nurse will provide direct care to the patient and assume a responsibility for the assessment of the patient, the diagnosis and then decided the treatment that this person will get. The nurse will have the mandate of dealing with the patient at an individual basis and this will help to make sure that the patient gets more attention so that he can be helped better.

References

Healthypeople.gov. “Healthy People 2010 Home Page.” 2014. Web. 27 Feb 2014.

Heather, Nick, and Tim Stockwell. “The Essential Handbook of Treatment and Prevention of

Alcohol Problems.” Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley, 2004. Print.

Maisto et al. “Drug use and abuse.” Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2008. Print.

Name:

Course:

Lecturer:

Date:

Topic: Alcohol as a high risk condition and associated behavior and patterns

High risk drinking of alcohol can be looked at in two distinct ways. One definition is the drinking that makes the person that is taking the alcohol to indulge in actions and behavior that will make him take a lot of alcohol and consequently intoxicate him more which in the end will cause harm to himself or the people that are around him. The other point of view that this behavior can be viewed from is demarcated by the high risk patterns that will be concomitant with the high risk drinking. These patterns will include taking a lot of alcohol and the frequency that the alcohol is taken, the predisposition for tolerance that exists, how early a person starts drinking, the existence of a social support system that encourages this drinking and in some instances a family history of drinking can be defined as a risk factor too.

There are several high risk drinking behaviors that lead to a variety of outcomes that are generally negative. These behaviors include but are not limited to taking part in drinking games that will involve chugging the drinks, using funnels and playing beer pong like many people do when they are having drinking parties. Drinking with the aim of getting drunk and afterwards driving or riding with an intoxicated person is also a high risk behavior. When drinking, the rate at which one drinks also matters and therefore drinking too much will be considered as an example of a high risk behavior and so is going to parties that everyone there is involved in binge drinking.

Most prescriptions clearly give the instruction that the person that will be taking the drugs should not take alcohol as long as he is on medication since different drugs react differently with alcohol and some if they mix may have consequences that are fatal. Combining alcohol with other drugs and even caffeine is also a high risk behavior since the outcome of how this drugs will react with the alcohol in the system cannot be predicted and in some instances cannot be controlled either. More often than not, the risk that is normally associated with these behavior will manifest themselves in the form of injuries that the person that has been drinking will sustain, hospitalization from poisoning that will be as a result of taking too much alcohol and even damage to property or being arrested by the authorities for crimes that are done under the influence.

High risk patterns are clearly defined and can easily be identified since they are simple thing like taking part on drinking sprees frequently and taking more alcohol than the rest of the people do at a time. This will generally lead to tolerance to the alcohol and therefore it will take more alcohol to make the same person drunk and this threshold will keep on increasing with every indulgence.

to drink at a young age is also a clear risk pattern as when the person gets older the drinking will become more regular and eventually may increase such that the person will be taking a lot of alcohol during these regular drinking sessions and dependence occurs (Heather, Nick, and Tim Stockwell, 196). Families that have a had a history with alcohol often rub this effects on the children that grew up in them and eventually they may start drinking without having clear limits of where to stop or without knowing that they have had enough.

There are also situations that the drinker will see that the situations that make him drink more do not come from within him but are defined by the policies that are in place for different purposes like regulating the consumption of alcohol and this is a bad sign since it means that the person that is drinking does not have control over the habit.

High risk drinking patterns also manifest themselves when peers in a peer group develop the feeling that their peers have the threshold to drink more than they can and thus the struggle to drink as much alcohol as their peers do leading to situations that may have a bad ending. There is also the group that looks at alcohol as a way of showing the freedom that they have acquired in society and this mainly happens to the young people who are enrolled in the universities and colleges.

A family that is characterized by people that drink alcohol and exhibit high risk patterns and behavior may be problematic and may bring about a situation that will be difficult for the children that are in it to grow up. For example, a mother that engages in high risk drinking will not be setting a good example for her daughter if she will not be able to cook and take care of her children as a result of this. If she has a baby, the baby will be affected by the milk that it will be breastfeeding if the mother will drink while breastfeeding.

A father that has a habit of high risk drinking may not be in a position to adequately provide for the family and also sets an example to the children of a care free attitude. This kind of behavior also brings ridicule to the children when they are among their peer. If in any case there are teenagers in the family and they are also engaged in this type of drinking, there are consequences and outcomes that are damaging and some permanent. Since high risk drinking can lead one to having sexual encounters that are careless, the teenagers may find themselves being parents at a very tender age. There is also the risk of contracting various venereal diseases and also Aids that will come as a result of having unprotected sexual relations since taking too much alcohol impairs decision making and rational thinking.

Healthy People 2010 objectives for high risk drinking

Healthy People 2010 incorporate several objectives that it aims to meet to make people’s lives much healthier and these include objectives that are aimed at reducing the total number of new infections in the world. There are various sources of new infections and high risk drinking is one of them since the people that will be taking part in this high risk drinking in most cases will not be careful with the sexual relations that they will take part in and this can lead to them contracting the disease (Healthypeople.gov 1).

There is also an objective that seeks to reduce the number of adolescents who have been forced to ride with an adult that was consuming alcohol during the previous one month so that this kind of high risk behavior can be tamed to avoid cases of accidents as a result of drinking while driving.

Healthy people 2010 also hope to reduce the number of deaths that occur as a result of problems that with the liver such as cirrhosis whose main cause is excessive drinking of alcohol. This will be achieved by education people of the consequences that are expected when large volumes are consumed since this puts a strain on the liver and consequently results in cirrhosis that leads to death.

Nursing intervention strategies

Brief alcohol interventions are counseling frameworks that are limited by time that usually put emphasis on the change of behavior and making sure that it increases the compliance for treatment. This is usually used to encourage the users that are not yet addicted and dependent on alcohol to reduce its consumption to the levels that are low risk and they can also help in referring those that need help since they are already dependent or addicted to programs that will help them reduce drinking. This program is designed to the care givers that will have a limited time with the people that they are supposed to help and are designed to serve places that a lot of people frequent such as general primary care settings. It is usually a precise set of rules that is mainly clinician directed and puts emphasis on convincing the patients in very few visits to reduce the amount of alcohol that they consume (Maisto et al., 387).

Role of the advanced practice nurse as a case manager in high risk drinking

An advanced practice nurse is a specialized nurse that can perform some duties that are the preserve of physicians and each advanced specialized nurse has a specific role and they are allowed to write prescriptions for medicine. In the case of treating a patient with a high risk drinking problem, the nurse will provide direct care to the patient and assume a responsibility for the assessment of the patient, the diagnosis and then decided the treatment that this person will get. The nurse will have the mandate of dealing with the patient at an individual basis and this will help to make sure that the patient gets more attention so that he can be helped better.

References

Healthypeople.gov. “Healthy People 2010 Home Page.” 2014. Web. 27 Feb 2014.

Heather, Nick, and Tim Stockwell. “The Essential Handbook of Treatment and Prevention of

Alcohol Problems.” Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley, 2004. Print.

Maisto et al. “Drug use and abuse.” Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2008. Print.