Mental Health Self medication

[T1gersxjaw]

I have noticed that many of my friends, and myself, who are addicted, started abusing drugs out of self medication. I've never had a friend whose moved on to heroin with a happy life, just to chase the high.. it's always on a downward spiral. Has anybody noticed a correlation between self medication and addiction? And the same goes toward depression and addiction? I've always used drugs as an escape from dysthymia. I just wanted to know if I'm not alone.

 

[missmeyet?]

Nope, your not alone...well known facts.

People with any type of mental dysfunction including anxiety and depression are considered higher risk for dependance and abuse of narcotics.

And yes, it is not uncommon for heroin addicts to have started off using pharms either to self medicate or because of chronic pain issues. Most people don't just jump to heroin straight off the bat and become an addict. Of course there are exceptions.

 

[Allein]

At least some of my drug problems are related to self medication although it's never completely cute and dried ;-

MDMA - years of heavy use IMO partly because it enabled me to feel happiness and relate to others

Speed - Energy and confidence - especially these days it removes the fatigued I suffer gices me motivation and circumvents insomnia ( this is not a recommendation)

Cannabis - 15 years of very heavy daily use - helped my anxiety and calmed me down I gave up on health grounds but over all I think it was a more positive than not mentally

Benzos - a good year or 2 of quite serious abuse, I felt they helped for obvious reasons but in retrospect they made things much worse (responsible use might well be therapeutic)

Coke - a couple of years of regular use, I have nothing good to say about and insidious substance that is best avoided IMHO

Alcohol - about 3 years of problem daily drinking ( bottle of Whiskey a day) horrible made me physically and mentally ill, a very damaging drug used in that way.

Tobacco - nearly 20 years I guess they helped with my nerves, so many people with mental illness smoke, I gave up as I planned to have children

Opiates - the last 12 months I've been taking codeine and morphine, prescribed for pain following a road accident surprisingly I've had pretty much no problems with controlling it and recently CTd from 100mg of morphine a day with little issues.


My drug use has many facets that I've become aware of

I'm a confirmed hedonist and do like taking drugs, it is one of only a few things a derive real pleasure from

Self medication is without doubt a significant factor in some cases and not all of it has negative results but overall I think total abstinence would be better

I believe that there can also be an element of self harm in some cases, I've only come to realise this fairly recently so am trying to address it

 

[valae]

it varies man theres a very large scale of addiction and yes there is a correlation with the much worse addicts self medicating all the time because of the addiction factor.