Understanding Addiction Archives

Cultural and Environmental Models

Environmental and cultural influences can be significant in promoting the use of particular substances within specific populations. Example – Culture Australia has high rates of alcohol-related conditions. It is suggested …

Managed alcohol programs

Managed Alcohol Programs (MAPs) are harm reduction interventions for people with severe alcohol use disorders and who do not have stable housing. In general, these people face significant barriers to …

What are E-cigarettes?

What are E-cigarettes? These are electronic devices that heat a liquid into an aerosol for inhalation. The liquid usually comprises propylene glycol and glycerol, with or without nicotine and flavours, …

Take Home Naloxone

Take-home naloxone (THN) programs provide an emergency supply of naloxone – the antidote to an opioid overdose – together with instructions about its administration, to people who use opioids and …

The work of opioid agonist treatment (OAT)

What is opioid agonist treatment? Opioid agonist treatment (OAT) is a well established first-line pharmacological intervention for opioid use disorders. OAT has its roots in harm reduction and its broad …

Welcome to the course

What will I learn? The use and misuse of licit and illicit drugs is a serious and complex problem, leading to broad health, social and economic concerns including; increased risk …

What are the health impacts of tobacco?

Tobacco has been used in many cultures for many hundreds of years. It remains one of the most commonly used drugs in the world and causes a significant health burden …

Getting the most out of this course

Whether you’re learning online for the first time, or you’re new to FutureLearn, the following tips will help you get the most out of your course. Travelling through the course …

Tolerance

Sustained use of a substance commonly leads to other issues, such as tolerance and withdrawal. Tolerance and withdrawal are telltale signs that substance use is turning into an addiction. Tolerance …

Psychological Models of Addiction

Psychological Models are a useful tool in understanding the unhealthy behaviours people are susceptible to from addiction. What are the Psychological Models of Addiction? Psychological models hypothesise that substance addictions …

Disease Model of Addiction

The disease model proposes that addiction involves an abnormality of structure or function in the central nervous system that results in impairment (West & Brown, 2013). Proponents of the Disease …

Welcome to week four

Welcome to the final week of this course! In week three we explored five models of addiction: moral, disease, psychological, socio-cultural and biopsychosocial. This week, we will take a look …

Welcome to week three

Welcome to week three of Understanding Addiction. Last week we established a basic understanding of what an addiction is. This week we will take a closer look at the dominant …

Lifelong learning with CQUniversity

Congratulations on completing this course! We hope that you have found the information throughout the last 4 weeks both informative and engaging. This final step presents an opportunity for you …

Welcome to week two

Welcome to week two of Understanding Addiction. We hope you enjoyed week one. In week one, you met the course author and your fellow learners. We also looked at recent …

Course: Understanding Addiction

Understanding Addiction