- Hi everyone.
So we are often asked to make a video about addiction
and schizophrenia or even addiction and mental illness.
And so in today's video, we are going to be talking
about when these two co-occur
and I'm also going to be sharing
about my own experiences with addiction.
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Hi and welcome back
to the Living Well with Schizophrenia Channel.
If you're new here,
my name is Lauren and I make videos
about what it's like to live
with Schizoaffective disorder or schizophrenia.
And if you would like to see more videos like this one,
make sure to subscribe
and also if you would like to help support
the creation of future videos like this one,
please make sure to check out the link to our Patreon page,
it's in the description below.
All right.
So research has found that a high number
of people who are living with schizophrenia
also struggle with addiction.
There are many speculative reasons as to why this may occur.
People with schizophrenia may look to various forms
of addiction as a way to kind of self-medicate
or alleviate feelings of anxiety and depression.
And often these addictions can take
the form of substance use issues.
So people with schizophrenia can fall
into using alcohol and drugs for very similar reasons
as individuals who do not have schizophrenia.
This important fact that it makes them feel good.
And as I mentioned, it can also become a form
of self-medication and a maladaptive coping strategy.
This self-medication can be in response to difficult
or unpleasant symptoms or to the side effects
of anti-psychotic medication.
Substance use also provides a bit
of a form of kind of social engagement
or network and can provide something
to do for individuals who are often socially isolated.
There is also evidence that environmental factors
can play a role.
So many people with schizophrenia
and substance use problems experience
a significant trauma earlier in life.
It has also been found that there is some overlap
in predisposing genes for schizophrenia and alcohol misuse,
alluding to the fact that there may be
some genetic connection between the two.
Now, while substance abuse cannot cause schizophrenia,
it can act as an environmental trigger.
So someone who already has a genetic risk factor
for schizophrenia may develop it
after extended substance use.
So using drugs such as marijuana, cocaine
and amphetamines can also potentially exacerbate symptoms
of schizophrenia and potentially worsen their severity.
It has been found that roughly 50% of people
with schizophrenia also struggle
with drug and alcohol misuse.
Similarly 65% to 85% of people with schizophrenia smoke
compared to just 18% of the general population.
So many of the consequences of alcohol and drug use
for people with schizophrenia are the same
as for those in the general population.
They can include impaired family
and interpersonal relations, job loss, loss of housing,
financial debt, medical problems and arrests and jailings.
However, people with schizophrenia who fall
into substance misuse can have more symptoms,
can have violent episodes,
have a higher use of emergency psychiatric services,
lower adherence with anti-psychotic medication
and a much higher relapse rate
compared with non substance users.
Now, when it comes to treatment,
it is vital that both disorders
are treated at the same time.
If someone stops substance use without being connected
to proper medication and treatment for their mental health,
they're very likely to relapse.
And then the same thing goes for
if a person is given mental health treatment
without addressing their substance use problems
they may stop treatment or treatment may be less successful.
This is why it is so so important
to treat both disorders concurrently.
Treatment for these co-occurring disorders typically
involves psychotherapy, substance use counseling,
medication and support groups.
Now I focused fairly heavily up until this point
on addiction as it pertains to alcohol and drug use.
However addiction can span far beyond these.
An addiction is really any form of coping mechanism,
typically maladaptive, an individual relies on
and essentially kind of obsesses over
or that becomes a focal point in their life.
Now it's important to note that it's not only people
with mental illness or with schizophrenia
who resort to these kinds of maladaptive coping strategies.
This is something that basically everyone falls prey to
at one point in their life or another
it can take the form of, you know, falling
into gambling addiction or falling into work addiction.
And I think a fairly universal one that a lot
of us can relate to is addiction to technology use.
And so, you know, falling
into these maladaptive coping strategies
for dealing with uncomfortable parts of life
is something that everyone does.
But I think that people who are living with schizophrenia
have a little bit more predisposition to falling
into these maladaptive coping strategies
in order to cope with their symptoms or side effects
of medication and just living with a chronic mental illness.
So as someone living with schizophrenia,
I have definitely fallen into addictions
as a means of maladaptive coping with my illness.
Okay.
So I am super nervous.
I have never spoken publicly
about my experiences with addiction
and so, you know, bear with me I'm nervous.
This is a very personal thing to be sharing.
And, you know, while it's very hard for me to admit
to these things and to share these things with you all,
I'm doing it because I know that, you know
there are a lot of other people who are going
through similar things that have a hard time sharing
with the people around them what they're going through
and reaching out for help in that regard.
So I'm hoping that sharing my experiences
with this will not only help to normalize it a little bit
and help you feel less alone but also to encourage you to
you know, share with the people in your life.
So the first kind of addiction that formed
in my life as a means of maladaptive coping
in relation to my illness was around food and eating.
When my symptoms started to get really bad
and I started to struggle a lot more in life, you know
with managing them and with understanding them
and you know, navigating all of that,
I developed a bit of an obsession
around what I was consuming food wise
and I began to very meticulously journal what I was eating
and would restrict very heavily.
This became an eating disorder.
I was eventually diagnosed with anorexia
which is not something that I share publicly very often
but it is something that I have struggled with in the past
and continues to be a struggle throughout my life
but something that I've learned to manage a bit more
but anyways, it became a way for me to,
it became a very good distraction
from the symptoms and all of that
that I was experiencing with the development
of my Schizoaffective disorder.
It became a very, very strong distraction
and it also became a form of getting little periods
of positive reinforcement.
So, you know, when I would see the number
on the scale drop, it was like,
okay I'm doing a good job of
what I have set out to accomplish.
And it was like, it was a bit of, you know,
positivity to hang onto and to strive toward.
And then it also developed and kind of devolved into periods
of bulimia as well where I would kind of lose control
of the strict grip I had on my eating
and I would binge on something
that I did not want to have binged on.
And so I would then result to purging
and that would also become
a huge maladaptive coping strategy
where it felt good to get rid of the food
that I had consumed and it was again,
a very big distraction and it was a small bit of relief
and something else to focus on
and work toward in a very gross, weird way.
And this was how my eating disorder developed
around the addiction of, you know,
managing and controlling something in my life, food.
And, you know, this developed as a result
I think of not having the control over what was happening
with my mental health and my mental illness.
Now another kind of addiction that spun up
as a means to kind of cope with my illness was overspending.
So I've always been very into fashion
and clothing and that kind of thing
and I found that, you know, online shopping
or shopping and buying new outfits
and stuff became a very quick
and easy form of feeling pleasure and feeling joy
and it became a distraction.
And just a quick dose of, you know
like a dopamine hit in terms of feeling good.
I think this is probably something a lot
of people do in terms of, you know
like emotional shopping and that kind of thing.
But I took it a little bit too far
and it became a detriment to my life financially
and you know, space wise,
I didn't have enough space in my house
for all these clothes and purchases that I was making.
And this is something that I continue
to struggle with to this day.
It's kind of something that I continuously need to manage.
And again it was just,
it's a distraction from you know,
what I was experiencing with my mental illness
or the symptoms that I'm experiencing
or the side effects of medication that I'm experiencing.
And it becomes something to really invest
a lot of attention toward
and to feel good temporarily about.
Now that's the kind of thing
where these things really betray you.
While they feel good temporarily in the moment, you know
the next day or when you get your bill in the mail
or when you start losing hair
because you have an eating disorder
and you feel awful and shameful and can't tell anyone
and it becomes the awful thing that it is
and it really comes to light
why it's a maladaptive coping strategy.
Because while it does give you that hit of gratification,
you know, when you need it, the fallout is there as well.
You know, I was listening to Russell Brand's audio book,
Recovery the other day and he mentioned
while he was kind of recounting his journey with recovery
that someone said to him,
"Good for you for finding something to keep you alive
and to get you through."
And I want to convey that to you as well.
If you have one of these maladaptive coping strategies,
like good for you for finding something
to get you through and to keep you alive
but the caveat there is that, you know
if it's a maladaptive coping strategy like substance use
or eating disorder or gambling or shopping,
over shopping or sex or unhealthy work habits or whatever,
the gamut of addiction is wide and vast,
if it's unhealthy and not serving you
with these follow-up periods,
then you know, you need to revisit it kind of
and revisit, yes it makes me feel good sometimes
and it helps me cope in the moment
with what I'm going through
but the bigger picture overall
is that it is making my life worse.
It's so easy to fall into some of these addictions
and maladaptive coping strategies because, you know
a lot of times some of these things
are kind of celebrated within our warped society.
You know, like when I became obsessed
with my food intake and you know, my weight and whatnot,
no one around me really said anything
and no one around me really voiced any concern
even though I became quite underweight
and was secretly obsessive,
I don't know if I showed it very much with food and whatnot
but nobody really said anything
because in our society, you know, weight loss is celebrated
and physical activity exercise is celebrated.
So even though I was probably overexercising,
people were like, Oh, she's taking care of herself,
she's doing a good job.
And, you know she's skinny.
Great, good for her.
So, you know it's easy to not notice
some of these things
and you know, the same goes
for like addiction to work or whatnot.
You know, that's very celebrated within
our kind of our capitalistic culture is, you know
this work all hours of the day, overextend yourself,
burn the midnight oil, pull an all nighter
with school and stuff too.
It's celebrated and so it's kind of difficult
to take a step back sometimes and realize, you know
is this really serving me in a positive way?
And it's difficult to, you know
have people in your life kind of holding up
that mirror for you because it's hard
to recognize sometimes.
And so if you are experiencing any form of addiction
or any kind of maladaptive coping strategy,
I really invite you to take a step back
and to really think about whether or not
this coping strategy you have employed
is serving you in the best way.
And you know, maybe it just requires
some tweaks to how you're doing it
for it to be a healthy coping mechanism
or maybe you just need to scrap it entirely
and go back to the drawing board to figure out
what are healthy coping mechanisms
that I can employ instead.
So like I said, in the beginning part of this video,
treatment options for dealing with
this co-occurring disorders of mental illness
and addiction rely on psychotherapy,
rely on specific treatment for that addiction.
So whether that's with a therapist,
whether that's in a specific like specialized program
for the difficulty that you're going through
whether that's finding peer support through, you know
peer groups or that kind of thing,
medication for the mental illness side of it
and also support groups.
Support groups are so helpful.
And, you know we're really lucky
in this day and age that we're living in
where there are endless amounts of support groups and forums
and whatnot online for these various kinds of addictions.
If you look into it, I'm sure you can find
some sort of resource or some sort of group out there
who are experiencing similar things
that you're experiencing and may be able to, you know,
provide that level of peer support
for you while you go through it.
And you know what?
Therapy.
Therapy, therapy, therapy.
It is so, so hard to acknowledge these things,
acknowledge that there is a problem
and then to take the necessary steps to address
that problem on your own.
It is very hard to do on your own
and so if you are comfortable,
reach out to those around you for help and support,
reach out to a therapist, your doctor
for support and guidance in terms of how to do that.
And if you have someone in your life who is struggling
with an addiction or a maladaptive coping strategy,
don't be afraid to hold up that mirror for them.
Don't be afraid to, you know
kind of question with them in a positive and supportive way
whether or not this coping strategy is really serving them
in a way that, you know really ameliorates their life.
And, you know, I can't stress enough,
compassion, support, love all of those things
in terms of dealing with someone who has a mental illness
and is struggling with an addiction of some kind
or even just anyone who is struggling
with an addiction of some kind,
even if they don't happen to have a mental illness.
All right. So that kind of wraps up this video.
I would love to hear more from you guys though.
If you have dealt
with some sort of maladaptive coping strategy
or addiction such as what I've talked about in this video
and you've gotten through it,
I would love to hear any tips that you may have
for how you managed to do that
or how you are in the process of doing that.
You know, dealing with addiction
on its own is a very, very difficult thing.
And especially then when you add in
having a mental illness like schizophrenia, you know
it's even more difficult to navigate and to figure out,
you know, how to work through.
And so if you have any tips,
I would love to hear from you in the comments below.
So thank you so much for watching this video.
I hope it was helpful in some way.
If you would like to see more videos like this one,
make sure to subscribe to our channel
so as not to miss anything we put out
and also just a quick reminder again,
that if you would like to help support the creation
of future videos like this one,
to please check out the link to our Patreon page,
it's in the description below.
Any support is really, really appreciated.
So thank you so much again for watching this video
and as always wishing you and your loved ones good health.
See you in the next video. Bye.