Aug
13
2010
What comes first in the family, experience mental illness or drug addiction / alcoholism?
Posted by: Alan in alcoholism treatment, tags: Addiction, Alcoholism, Comes, Drug, Experience, Family, First, Illness, Mental
request of her husband
response bitchy.princezz
Drugs / Alkoholsie be mentally ill after dependent Send reply to this question below!
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August 13th, 2010 at 12:54 pm
both ways apply.
Often mental illness results from drugs, however, many mental ill people self medicate
August 13th, 2010 at 1:20 pm
Stay out of my computer and my book files, you!
My experience within my own family is that there is a degree of mental illness first, which may or may not develop into addictive behaviour. The reasons for this mental illness existing in the first place are complex, and you’ll just have to wait for my second book. When drugs/alcohol are added to the mix, the behaviour and symptoms invariably worsen, which is why I call schizophrenia, in some of its forms, DES, for Drug Enhanced Schiz – this is a common and increasing problem in our society, and one reason why I oppose marijuana in every way.
The same thing is possible with alcohol use, but this is generally a longer term thing, and the result of accumulating brain damage. I have observed this behaviour in long term heavy drinkers, but it requires heavy drinking, as stated, over a very long period of time to accumulate the level of brain damage needed to induce schizophrenia-like symptoms and behaviour, including paranoia and delusions.
EDIT: Agree with the self-medicating aspect – this is common amongst Veterans, and has taken many years to be seen as self-medicating for psychological (not psychiatric) problems caused by war, rather than as the cause of the problems. This older view, naturally, gave government an escape hatch on many Veteran’s problems.