Depression-Self Medication-Living in Pain-Melancholic

 

Depression is very often the precursor to substance abuse. Depression and substance abuse form a cycle. People who are depressed abuse drugs and alcohol to help alleviate their depression. People who abuse substances then become depressed by the damage they have inflicted on themselves, it is a cycle.

Depression is a diagnosis used frequently in our society today. In my mother's era, and I am in my 40's, they really had no treatment or much discussion or explanation for depression. Although long from finding a simple cure, today we know more about depression and have some methodologies for helping people feel better.

Feeling "blue" one day, and depression that lingers for long periods of time are entirely different things. Today more and more young people are taking their own lives, so in many cases whether depression leads to addiction, then alcoholism, or just plain apathy, it also can result in suicide. Identifying and treating depression can also help to off set the need or desire to self medicate to alleviate the pain, which can then become an addiction.

Leaving Las Vegas was a movie done some years ago that demonstrated a man deliberately intent on killing himself over a period of time with heavy consumption of alcohol until he died. That was his intention, and he carried it out. Often times we think it is only suicide if it happens abruptly.

Depression is a very complex condition and treatment is available for the psychology as well as the biology of the depressed person. Today we are getting closer to being able to see how the brain functions with brain scan technology that can even help to pin point the serotonin and dopamine receptors that may be depleted in a person's brain. Often times in the course of ones attendance in rehab, and within the scope of the treatment program, the client will be diagnosed as depressed, bipolar or with other pre-existing disorders. Once identified, they can and are treated in a controlled way under a Doctors and / or Psychiatrists supervision. The combination of both therapies has been the most popular and successful to date.

 

 

Hope for Depression and Melancholy

 

Some will argue that depressed people have a more accurate view of the world (maybe that is why they are depressed), than non-depressed people. People who think they are not much liked, are probably closer to the mark than those who believe that they enjoy universal love. A depressed person may have better judgment that a non depressed person. For instance, studies have shown that depressed and non depressed people are equally good at answering abstract questions. When asked about having control over over an external event, non depressed people typically believe they have more control than they actually do, and depressed people give a more accurate assessment.

 

In a study done with a video game, depressed people who played for 30 minutes, knew how many little monsters they had actually killed. The non depressed people guessed four to six times more than they had actually hit. Freud observed that the " melancholic ", has a keener eye for truth than others who are non melancholic.

Too optimistic of a view can result in foolish risk taking, but moderate optimism is a strong selective advantage.

 

All substances of abuse including nicotine, alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and about twenty others that we are currently aware of have major effects on the dopamine system. Substance abuse acts on the brain in 3 stages: 1. the first stage is in the forebrain and affects cognition. 2. this then excites fibers leading to the most primitive areas of the brain-the ones we have in common with reptiles- and 3. then these send tingling messages to many other parts of the brain typically affecting the dopamine system. Cocaine for instance seems to block dopamine uptake so that more is floating around in the brain, by contrast morphine causes the release of dopamine.

 

Using Opiates and Heroin to Cope with Depression

 

Opiates and Heroin are depressants (not stimulants). Their effect is not a simple suppression of feelings: it provides the user a type of "joy" in having their feelings suppressed. While on opiates, people can give anxiety and depression "the slip". Being high on opiates makes one feel like doing nothing, and that doing nothing in life is more than all right. People who have used Heroin and Opiates, and are managing to live drug free, or with methadone suffer tremendous and high rates of depression. Neurologists say that this is because of organic damage to the brain produced by the opiates.

Interestingly, during the Vietnam War, most of the ground troops used Heroin, and there was concern that when they returned home to the United States that they would fight a battle with addiction to the drug. In fact, studies indicate the most veterans of Vietnam have used heroin a least once since their return, but only a small proportion of them have a continuing addiction. That is relatively good news with regard to the prognosis of getting off heroin.

 

Using Club Drugs & Ecstasy

 

Hallucinogens and "club drugs" are in a class by themselves. The pharmacology reports on ecstasy used for recreational purposes ( 100-150 milligrams), ecstasy damages brain serotonin axons-the part of the nerve cell that reaches out to other cells. The drug essentially causes an explosion of serotonin and dopamine, releasing big stores of these substances and then damaging the cells where they are stored. Most importantly, it prevents the synthesis of more serotonin. Regular users of ecstasy have lower serotonin levels than other people, sometimes as much as 35 percent lower. Researchers have reported a number of episodes of a s single does of ecstasy triggering permanent psychiatric illness-sometimes immediately, and sometimes years later.

 

Depressed people are in no position to be lowering their serotonin levels and should therefore not ever consider using this drug. David McDowell of Columbia says, If you take a lot of it over a period of time, you may destroy your ability to feel happiness; it can cause in the long term the adverse effects that cocaine causes in the short term.

If you or a loved one is experiencing depression, please contact one of the treatment centers listed on newliferecovery.net, or contact your physician for further help.

 

By: New Life Recovery®

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