Old and High: A Guide to Understanding the Neuroscience and Psychotherapeutic Treatment of Baby-Boom Adults’ Substance Use, Abuse, and Misuse

Despite the stereotype of older adults primarily abusing alcohol, clinical practice insights indicate that the baby-boom generation frequently abuses the same substances as younger adults-including alcohol, benzodiazepines/z-drugs, cannabis, opioids, tobacco (nicotine), and neurostimulants. Old and High exposes this hidden epidemic and emphasizes the importance of understanding psychotropic substance abuse as a community health problem. Further, the book identifies the unique cultural values, social values, and risks that baby-boom adults have with respect to substance abuse and misuse to give students and clinical professionals in psychology, social work, gerontology, nursing, and medicine a foundation for working with this population. Readers will learn how to integrate current neuroscience findings with contemporary psychotherapy techniques and harm-reduction interventions to help older adults achieve successful recovery from substance abuse problems. Considering that we will likely observe an increase in rates of substance abuse as the baby-boom generation continues to age-and live longer than previous groups-there will be a major need to better understand the unique risk factors and treatment approaches for working with older adults.