Addictions

Current treatment for addictions is to achieve a state of abstinence as an outcome. This is a poor outcome. An addict can learn to manage their addiction. Many do. Probably many more than those who don't manage their addiction. I fall into the latter but I'm getting better at it.

The choice I made was to not let the drug control me but I chose a difficult path. Teetotallers can't enjoy what they used to enjoy with treatment for alcohol addictions. With new addictions like internet addictions becoming part of the diagnostic criteria there is a need for a different treatment outcome. Or will future mental healthcare attempt to make 'teetotalling' internet users?

Addicts are normal people and normal people enjoy themselves with all sorts of drugs, from alcohol to work. Yes, even work is an addiction that, for some people, follows the same patterns as a drug addiction. Teetotalling 'work' addicts would probably pick up a drug addiction or be prescribed a legal one to cope with the boredom.

A friend of a friend was diagnosed with an alcohol and sex addiction. He subsequently got a diagnosis of depression while successfully abstaining from both his old medications that salved his inner pain. The doctors prescribed him antidepressants.

The example is elucidating I hope on a point. Take from it whatever you will.

Treatment can also involve a 'cold turkey' and for some people it is enforced against their will. It is inhumane to force this on anyone. It is also exceptionally traumatic for some people even if they choose to go cold turkey. In the use of psychiatric pharmaceuticals its recommended that levels of medication be tapered off when coming off however I don't know if this happens with non-psychiatric psychopharmaceutical or other forms of self-administered treatment for unhappiness/filling the whole in your soul. I've seen people brought onto wards so they could get alcohol addiction treatment and that meant they felt severely unwell and went through painful withdrawal symptoms that were unnecessary pain.

The stigmatisation of drug use means that there is no representation for them, no voice amongst the professional campaigners fighting for other mental illnesses. This is why such an unnecessarily painful way to treat alcohol and drug addictions is allowed.

I can see why dual diagnosis is stigmatised of course: I do it to myself. This is why its seen as a self harming behaviour. Its also been explained to me as a form of obsessive compulsive by a therapist. The therapist was ethical at least. He worked in a drugs and alcohol counselling service and he tried to help me manage my minor addiction rather than push me down the 12-steps programme.

I doubt many people can even see dual diagnosis and addictions as a mental illness like any other. The stigma is different to the stigma of mental ill health because its redoubled by the public stigma against addicts and against drugs. I suspect that I wouldn't be popular if I espoused an alternative understanding based on personal experience rather than hearsay, biased media stories and what their parents told them.