Columns

Aside from the "war on drugs" begun as far back as Richard Nixon and in spite of its hypocrisy as well as its draconianism, I do not believe that illegal drugs, alcohol, and appetite suppressants are good for persons with mental illness.  

I have seen persons with mental illness being destroyed by drugs. One of the less than picturesque aspects of this is the loss of teeth. I have seen someone to my knowledge much younger than I who looks like a ninety year old person. That person was missing her teeth, and her face was shriveled up like a prune. And I believe that woman is in her thirties or forties.  

There ought to be no moral judgment in connection with this. Addiction to drugs doesn't automatically make a person depraved. Unfortunately, the court system hasn't discovered this yet.  

For someone with mental illness, narcotics and alcohol are more of a temptation because of the built-in misery brought about by the illness and the medication side-effects. I knew someone who had severe depression, which was not adequately abated by medication, and that person was addicted to methamphetamine for a long time. (That person eventually got into recovery and had become stabilized in later years, to the best of my knowledge.)  

People do recover, and must recover if they are not to be killed in slow or fast decline caused by these habits.  

If someone has a mental illness, it is much harder for them to get off of substances. This is because the narcotic is partly addressing the original problem created by the mental illness.  

I am not going to preach to the millions of people who use drugs and who do not have a problem with it. It seems odd that one would automatically curse illegal drugs that make you feel good in favor of those created by the multibillion dollar drug companies that make you feel like crap.  

Prescription drugs have caused numerous deaths, especially when they are combined with alcohol. Just because something is manufactured by a government approved corporation and is not illegal doesn’t make it automatically safe to take.  

However, marijuana isn't good for people with schizophrenia because it can increase paranoia and other symptoms. Marijuana, being to some extent a "psychedelic," can really worsen symptoms of psychosis.  

Nationwide, there has been a surge of addiction to prescription painkillers mainly among the general public. This situation is eating away at people's lives and has severe economic consequences.  

Thus, just because a drug is a prescription drug, it doesn't automatically make it a "good" drug. That said, in my experience I am much better off taking the medications prescribed than I would be if I were to take street drugs. I have a good psychiatrist, who, like many doctors, is conscious of the potential for drug abuse.  

A person with mental illness, or anyone for that matter, must be very careful what he or she is ingesting and should not automatically assume that it is safe because a physician or psychiatrist is prescribing it.  

Concerning drug addiction, just as with the dreaded tobacco habit, you are better off not trying it in the first place--you cannot safely anticipate that you are "strong enough" to overcome an addiction.  

*** 

As always, my books are for sale on Amazon, including but not limited to "Instructions for Dealing with Schizophrenia; a Self-Help Manual." And coming within the next six months, I have an exciting new book manuscript in the works.