DUI course

[emilyjw]

Hey guys - looking for some help here. I'm an ER nurse and this year is my second year teaching a court mandated 48 hour DUI class. Obviously, people don't want to be here and make a dozen excuses on why it wasn't their fault. Most of the time. Anyway, I show a lot of video content... which is great, but the nurse I replaced was in her sixties or seventies, and it looks like that's how old my tapes are for the course too. I think some of the content is great, but being so dated, I know it's auper hard for people to take an interest. Does anyone else out there teach a similar course or have any suggestions for updating my content? I'd love to make it more relatable which means more recent content. I'd even be willing to take a small portion out of my own check to cover the cost of updating. Any help would be great! Thanks so much.

[Davey Do]

Any help would be great!

I worked for a community mental health clinic in the late 90's and early 'augts and one of my duties was to give two hour lectures twice a week from 0800 to 1000 to court mandated alcohol and drug abusers. It wan't the easiest crowd to play to, but I made it fun.

I had worked in inpatient chemical dependency from 1987 to 1991, so I had quite a bit of background on which to draw. I focused primarily on the effects of alcohol and drugs had on the body's systems and left the "excuses", as you say emilyjw, to the therapists.

I made a life-sized person out of plywood and painted in a basic circulatory, respiratory, and digestive system. I used the cut out person to explain alcohol's effect on the transitional epithelium of the digestive track, for example.

We went all over the place, talking about how most drugs react by being catalyst or inhibitors. Understanding what alcohol and drugs do to the body isn't necessarily a deterrent to their abuse, but being a nurse, the human body was my area.

The disease concept of alcoholism was discussed which would get us into areas like behaviors and destructive coping mechanisms and the like, where I felt relatively comfortable, but my focus was primarily in the area of physical affects.

I would get the people involved, treating the lecture somewhat like a game show. For example, when we were discussing the effects of alcohol on the digestive system, I talked about peristalsis and poised a question: "How many people here believe food goes from your mouth to your stomach by means of gravity?" A good number of people believed that it did. So I had two people hold my legs while I stood on my head and drank juice from a cup through a straw. When my little skit was over, I'd say' "Let's have a round of applause for our helpers!"

Most of my lectures were organic and impromptu and I flew by the seat of my pants, having had nearly four years of working around some seasoned professionals while working inpatient treatment to hone my presentations. I'm also a bit of a ham. Since these were the days the internet was still somewhat in its infancy, the publication I utilized was The Recovery Book by Mooney/Eisenberg/Eisenberg. I'm sure there are a wealth of online resources out there.

You might try the Nurses in Recovery forum right here on AN.com for more information.

https://allnurses.com/nurses-recovery/

Good luck to you, emilyjw!

Edit: Probably even a better forum:

https://allnurses.com/addictions-nursing/

[CharleeFoxtrot, BSN, RN]

You might also get in touch with your local police or State Troopers, they may have teaching resources and videos.