Adverse Effects of Drug Abuse

¶ … adverse effects of drug abuse" to the local youth at our neighborhood community club. The objective of the presentation was to educate the youth in our community about the many disastrous effects of illicit drugs on both the physical and mental health of the user. It is the objective of this paper to reflect on and evaluate the effectiveness of my verbal communication during the presentation.

To start with, I believe that I prepared really well for the presentation since I was aware of the need to make a deep and lasting impression on the audience. In fact, I spent a lot of time in researching the subject and putting together material on the various types of illicit drugs and their adverse effects. The material I compiled included both visual representations and written descriptions of the illicit drugs, their street names and the various methods of use. In addition, I also interweaved text slides, which highlighted the short- and long-term effects of each drug. The text slides were formatted using bulleted points that focused on each adverse effect separately. Thus, I think it can be said that the amount of preparatory work resulted in my knowing the subject well enough to increase my confidence levels.

A also made sure that there was a logical flow to the material being presented since I understood the criticality of educating the audience about the adverse effects of illicit drugs in a manner that would be easy to comprehend. In fact, I did several dry runs of the presentation to my fellow counselors at the community center with the objective of restructuring or refining the presentation, if need be. Although I did revise some sections and slides based on the feedback from the dry run, on the whole I am pleased to say that there was a general agreement that the presentation would be effective as long as it was delivered well.

Looking back, however, I now realize that the presentation material was perhaps far too focused on dry facts. In fact, this was probably the reason why the audience was somewhat restless while I was making the presentation. Whereas if I had had the foresight to gear the presentation to include a more in depth exploration of motives underlying drug abuse and addiction, it would have probably led to a greater degree of audience involvement and interest. More important, if the presentation had addressed the psychological causes behind drug abuse, it may been far more effective since it would have demonstrated the devastating consequences of, for example, giving in to peer pressure.

Since my verbalization of the subject matter was prepared in line with the presentation material, I must admit that the presentation was delivered in a dry, clinical, albeit well -paced tone of voice. Thus, even though my verbal communication of the material was effective, on reflection, I believe that I could have achieved a more animated presentation by bringing alive the causes and consequences of drug abuse. Indeed, an honest self-evaluation of the presentation under discussion would have to conclude that I failed to take into account the import of tailoring a subject to an audience's concerns in order to gain their attention, involvement and empathy.

Further, if I were to be really objective, I think that I also failed to use non-verbal communication cues effectively, although I did speak on the subject with clarity and confidence. For instance, I now realize that I could have dramatized the ill-effects of drugs on an individual's health through the use of emphatic gestures, facial expressions, and by modulating my tone of voice appropriately. for, after, all, as Albert Mehrabian found, only 7% of the emotional meaning of a message is conveyed through explicit verbal channels, while 38% is conveyed by the use of voice, and as much as 55% is dependent on non-verbal cues such as gesture, posture, etc. (Chapman University).