Talk It Out: Heroin Abuse and Addiction

This program begins with a discussion about how our instincts drive us to avoid pain or remove pain from our lives. From this perspective, the video explains the difference between healthy and unhealthy approaches to getting rid of pain. Students will learn about prescription opioids and the potential risk of addiction that is identified by two key components, tolerance and withdrawal. The program then targets the short and long term effects of heroin use, and explains how it harms various body systems. Students will come to understand that heroin addiction goes beyond physical dependence, and that once addicted to heroin, a person s primary goal in life is to find and ingest the drug. Learning Objectives: After viewing this program, students will: understand heroin is an opioid that is highly addictive learn that tolerance and withdrawal are identified as the two key components of addiction understand the short term and long term effects of heroin use on the body and brain recognize the relationship between our instincts to avoid or remove pain from our lives, prescription drugs and heroin use