Persons over/using psychoactive substances and persons with substance and non-substance addictions are a specific target group of social work. This clientele specifically requires assistance in the context of interventions at individual and environmental level (in different systems) if the intervention goal is the effective help is to minimize damage due to pathological behaviour, to achieve abstinence or overall rehabilitation of social functioning in the whole spectrum of its disturbances that have arisen as a result of the long-term deteriorating living situation of these persons.
Although the aforementioned, i.e. the intervention focus on the client and at the same time on his/her environment, in the full extent of the variable and individualized services, seems to be a clear and pragmatic fact, in practice the principle of complexity and the integrated approach with an emphasis on the reflection of eco-social factors is often absent or is postulated verbally but not in fact.