Drug Addiction Short Paper Essay Example for Free

Drug Addiction Short Paper Essay There are many myths about addiction whether it be alcohol addiction or drug addiction. One of these myths is that drug addiction is voluntary. Once someone becomes addicted to drugs it can change the person’s brain chemistry and drug use then becomes compulsive and uncontrollable. Another myth is that addiction is a flaw in a person. Once addicted to drugs the person can’t control their want/need for the drug. Another myth is that a person has to want to get help for their addiction in order to stop using drugs. I do believe this myth is only partially correct because I do think that someone needs to at least own up to the fact that they have an addiction problem. A court can order someone to get drug treatment which can help them to kick their habit but they must be willing to make an effort. Another myth is that people who are addicts can stop on their own without any treatment if they make an effort to stop. Most people suffering from addiction can’t stop on their own without getting treatment and if they do it isn’t long lasting. Another myth is that someone can’t be forced into treatment. People can also be coerced and remanded by a court into getting the help they need for their addiction. Many people also believe the myth that people only get treatment once they have hit rock bottom. This is simply untrue as many people get treatment before they have lost complete control over themselves and their actions. Or if they have been made to seek treatment by a court order or been coerced by friends and or family members. Some people realize they have an addiction and chose on their own to seek help before hitting rock bottom. While a lot of people think that there is one certain treatment for all addicts this is not the case. Addictions are different on a case by case basis and have to be tailored to each individual person. It simply would not work to treat every addiction in the same manner. A lot of people with addiction also suffer from some sort of psychiatric illness as well that needs to be treated. If a psychiatric illness is not addressed the person could slip back into addiction. Most drugs and alcohol (including marijuana) can become addictive if used to often. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse over time marijuana can cause changes in the brain which can lead to addiction. Marijuana can also cause withdraw symptoms when the user stops using the drug. Which can lead to the person becoming irritable; interfere with sleep, and restlessness just to name a few. References: Marijuana. (n.d.). Retrieved May 25, 2015, from http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/marijuana/marijuana-addictive http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/marijuana/marijuana-addictive

The Tet Offensive :: essays research papers

The Tet Offensive was a series of battles which took place during the Vietnam War. It was a major offensive by the North Vietnamese Army, and the Viet Cong, beginning on the night of January 30-31, of 1968, which was the Chinese New year. The objective of the 1968 Tet Offensive was to take the Nationalist and the US armies by surprise since North Vietnam's government proposed a ceasefire for the celebration of the Lunar New Year. There were three major battles of the offensive, which we discussed in class. The battle of Hue City was one of these major attacks. The city of Hue was attacked by ten NVA battalions and almost completely overrun. Thousands of civilians believed to be potentially hostile to Communist control, including government officials, religious figures, and expatriate residents, were executed in what became known as the Massacre at Hue. The city was not recaptured by the US and ARVN forces until the end of February. The US and ARVN lost 482 men and the NVA around 7,500. The second major battle of the offensive was the battle of Khe Sanh. The fighting began on January 29 as a number of Vietnamese units began their attacks prematurely. The rest of the NLF/NVA attacks began on the night of 30-31st. It was in Huế, the ancient capital, and Saigon that the NVA had significant success. The morale of the ARVN was being badly eroded. The third major battle of the Tet Offensive took place in and around the city of Saigon. Around five battalions of NLF had infiltrated the city. The headquarters of the ARVN was attacked by around 700 men and there was heavy fighting but only 110 American casualties. The Vietnamese casualties in this assault and other actions in Saigon were over 1,100 men but aided in their gained control of large parts of the city. Fighting lasted almost a week and some sections of the city were in ruins due to US airstrikes and artillery.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  General Giap's plan was divided into three phases. In the first phase, the PAVN would launch attacks on the border regions of South Vietnam to draw American forces away from South Vietnamese cities. Giap knew this could be a risky move, but reasoned that it would be worth the cost. Phase two saw widespread attacks by the Viet Cong all over South Vietnam's cities, which would prod the civilians into full fledged revolt against the 'hated' Americans and the South Vietnamese government.

Beatles & Rolling Stones

The Sixties had been defined by the events of the decade namely the Space Program, the war in Vietnam, the movement against it and the youth counterculture behind the movement also collectively categorized under sex, drugs and rock & roll. Of all the musical bands that emerged during the sixties, the Beatles was the most dominant. They became the precursors of the British invasion of America.Quickly following on their heels was the Rolling Stones. David Leaf, in his book about the Beach Boys, remarked that the decade called The Sixties actually started only in 1964 when the Beatles arrived in America.It ended, however, in 1969 during the Rolling Stones free concert in Altamont, California when an African-American man was killed by a member of Hell’s Angels as Mick Jagger sang â€Å"Under my Thumb† (cited in Curtis, 111-112). American music still held sway over popular music even in Britain. Most bands were playing cover music or renditions of existing American songs. Th e Beatles were no different. However, what set them apart was that they were also writing their own songs. This was highly unusual at that time.In the United States, this was not an entirely new thing as Bob Dylan had already begun to introduce the power of the lyrics, but it was the Beatles that made rock and roll accessible to the masses and made it popular yet still retain its sense of anti-establishment that appealed to the youth. Their music exuded a sense of fun. Their instinct in releasing the catchy song I Want to Hold Your Hand as their debut record to the American market proved to be correct. The Americans were still reeling from the depression wrought by the assassination of the President John F.Kennedy and the song brought back the smiles. Their song’s melody had a way of attaching itself to your psyche. While you may forget what the rest of the lyrics are, the chorus simply stays. They used this same formula with their follow up single She Loves You and one can s imply not sing yeah, yeah, yeah in their head. This effect came to be known as â€Å"Beatlemania. † Their film A Hard Day’s Night is now often referred to as the very first music video. The mania is evident from the statistics. In February 1964, â€Å"I Want To Hold Your Hand† became the first Beatles record to top the U.S. singles charts. In the same month, the group's appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on CBS attracted the largest ever television audience of more than 73 million or 60 per cent of all U. S. viewers. By the end of March, they held the top five positions in the singles charts (and also had six of the top ten singles in Canada). Their first coast-to-coast U. S. tour, in August and September, saw them â€Å"perform before more people than any other artists in the history of American pop music–including Elvis Presley† (Rayl and Gunther 3).The Wall Street Journal estimated that by the end of the year Americans would spend more than $50 million on sales of Beatle-related merchandise (McCabe and Schonfeld 66) (cited in Inglis, 93). The John Lennon-Paul McCartney collaboration proved to be unbeatable. One made up for what the other lacked. Their producer, George Martin, likewise had a hand in the reinvention of the pop rock sound with creative approaches to recording. They were among the first to incorporate various sounds such as‘Classical' musicians onto ‘pop' records, (in one case, a whole orchestra), and incorporated studio accidents such as feedback, twisted tapes, and random lyrics into their songs to create a new kind of music which put a premium on creativity†¦The Beatles set a standard of excellence in the writing and recording of British popular music which legions of pop idols have been striving to emulate ever since. They made pop music artistically respectable (Karwowski, 281). The Rolling Stones broke into the music scene with the help of Beatlemania and their first manager, Andrew Loog Oldham.Their music influence was primarily the blues especially that of Muddy Waters whom they honored with their choice of band name but Oldham saw them instead as the antithesis to the Beatles. They were going to sell music and sex. Oldham saw that that a need for an alternative sound was forthcoming and he needed to position his band just right. Still maintaining that they were a blues outfit, Mick Jagger was said to have made a remark in 1962, â€Å"I hope they don't think we're a rock and roll outfit† (Curtis, 209).Today, they have emerged as the world’s greatest rock and roll band. Ironically, the Rolling Stones first hit recording was a composition by Lennon and McCartney, I Wanna be Your Man which was released as a single on November 1, 1963 while it was made a part of an album by the Beatles which was released on November 23, 1963. Regardless, the style was markedly different. The Beatles played what the British called Beat Music, and the Rolling Stones were blues-based. As the Beatles were spreading Beatlemania in America, the Rolling Stones were going to number one in England.It was not long, however, that at the suggestion of Oldham, the Rolling Stones were writing their own songs and were able to establish their credentials with ‘Satisfaction' and ‘Jumping Jack Flash'. As the Beatles evolved to become studio recording artists, the Rolling Stones were live acts performing in marathon tours singing their own songs as well as covers of other people’s songs. According to Curtis, â€Å"‘Satisfaction’ is the first anthem of the sixties. This song defined the mid-sixties just as ‘Blowin' in the Wind’ defined the early sixties, and ‘Light My Fire’ defined the late sixties† (212).The Rolling Stones music added with Mick’s onstage performance which exuded overt sexuality, Keith’s rock solid guitar riff and Brian who could play any instrument given to him, they were a challenge to the establishment. It was their offstage behavior that sealed their reputation and appeal to the more radical proponents of the youth counterculture though they reject responsibility. As it was, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards had the ignominious record of being the first rock stars to be arrested on drug charges (Curtis 208-209).Dave Aguilar of the Watchband had a better explanation of the appeal of the rock bands especially over the women, â€Å"I'm convinced that just before practice sessions, 60s rock bands secreted pheromones detectable from outer space by the underage female species of Homo Erectus† (cited in Kauppila, 2005). By 1967, the war in Vietnam was intensifying and the hippie population was increasing. They were beads and flowers, smoked marijuana and â€Å"dropped acid. † The counterculture was clamoring for hard rock. In response, psychedelic music was produced.This was music that one cannot sing along or dance to. â€Å"It was loud and electronically distrotted, and often laced with mystic messages† (McWilliams & Miller, 70-71). Both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones profited from the popularity of this new sound. The Rolling Stones went head on with the Beatles with the release of ‘Their Satanic Majesties Request’ which was a pun on the British passport which contained the phrase Her Britannic Majesty Requests. It was a concept album that was an obvious response to the Beatles Sgt.Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club concept album. While the Beatles album was immensely successful, the Rolling Stones’ Majesties was a watershed in their career. The album was criticized for lacking â€Å"the irony and the gutsy, hard-driving rock that the Stones do well† while the Beatles was praised in using â€Å"ambience noise to create the fiction of a performance setting. The contrast between their styles was evident as well, â€Å"As opposed to the Beatles' cheerfulness in a music hall, the S tones offer decadence in a cabaret† (Curtis, 214-215).The music of the Beatles had transcended boundaries between classes and age groups more because of the beat and without regard to the veiled and dual messages contained in the lyrics, while the music of the Rolling Stones were more associated to the cultural subversion of the youth of the Sixties. Their style was more confrontational and more sensory-related and was thus used as a barrier against the rules of the adults. A criticism against them was that they represented the darker side of the age of love and freedom. Simon Frith pointed out that rock would eventually lead to violence because†¦rock can't just be consumed, but must be responded to like any other form of art-its tensions and contradictions engaged and reinterpreted into the listeners' experience. Such engagement is intellectual and moral, the results are enriching and can be disturbing†¦ The rock audience is not seen as a passive mass, consuming rec ords like cornflakes but as an active community making music into a symbol of solidarity and an inspiration for action (Whiteley, 87). With songs entitled ‘Jumpin' Jack Flash’, ‘Brown Sugar,’ ‘Midnight Rambler’ and ‘Sympathy for the Devi’, Frith was definitely referring to music of the Rolling Stones.Mick countered with a comment of his own. I don't understand the connection between music and violence. I just know that I get very aroused by music, but that it doesn't arouse me violently. I never went to a rock ‘n' roll show and wanted to smash windows or beat anybody up afterwards. I feel more sexual than actually physically violent (cited in Whiteley, 88). The incident at the Altamont concert in 1969 was unfortunate. While the violence was clearly motivated by deep-seated bigotry, it was attributed to rock music due to association by context.

Bad Decisions, Sad Lives - 1309 Words

Cortney Vanderburg Dr. Young English 1020 22 March, 2016 Bad Decisions, Sad Lives It’s no secret that modern day youth has evolved into something far from what it was 20-30 years ago. While every growing teen experiences hormonal changes and learns their way to adult hood, some find this problem easier to cope with than others, unfortunately, many of those others result to substances such as pain killers, stimulants, and anti-depressants to help deal with their struggles as a teen. Throughout the past two decades increasing numbers of reported deaths and overdoses has started to trend, many of these reports cases of emotionally distressed teens trying to find some sense of fulfilment. Statistics of addiction induced deaths, and psychological illnesses such as anxiety and depression are at an all-time high among adolescents in this generation. Dr. Nora D Volkow, director of the National Institute On Drug Abuse reports that unintentional overdose deaths involving opioid pain relievers have quadrupled since 1999, and by 2007, outnumbered those involving heroin and cocaine. Studies have shown that individuals who begin using drugs as juveniles are at greater risk of becoming addicted compared to those who begin drug use as an adult due to the immaturity of the teenage brain, particularly of that part of the brain that controls impulses (MedicineNet). Before contributing to solve this issue we must first look further into the many causes of why teenagers are becoming addicted.Show MoreRelatedThe Is Not A Good Thing1343 Words   |  6 Pageshappiness in their life, that is why most of our decisions are based on whether it will make us happy or not. This is where we underestimate the power of going through something sad or difficult. 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Although he born in America, he has missed his hometown all along and that is an important part of this poem. What’s more, this emotion is included in most compositions of him. After all, poets will produce their composition from their life and experience. This poem is extremelyRead MoreAbsolutely True Diary Of A Part Time Indian Theme Analysis708 Words   |  3 Pagesto show a student to go further in life than he did. â€Å"You can’t give up. You won’t give up. You threw that book in my face because somewhere inside you refuse to give up† (p. 43). Mr. P had given Junior hope to leave the reservation because of how sad it was to stay for himself and for Junior. â€Å"You kept your hope. And now, you have to take your hope and go somewhere where other people have hope† (p. 43). Mr. P had felt a lot of regret for his past and uses his mistakes to give his student a perspective