The chemical deception: Why self-medication with stimulants leads to deeper psychological distress

“ One of the marvelous things about human nature is the ability to feel pain. This may seem like an odd thing to say, but reflect for a moment. Pain is frequently what spurs us on from an unsatisfying and even destructive situation to a better future. Pain tells you to jerk your hand away from a hot stove. A different kind of pain tells you it is time to get on with living, time to {28} initiate some positive changes. Anxiety, sleeplessness, irritability, resentment, depression—they all can be painful inner feelings that tell us that all is not well in our inner selves. ”

“ People, in their ignorance, often deemed the instantaneous, narcotising and intoxicating means, the so-called comforts, to lie the real healing powers; nay, they did not even notice that often they had to atone for the instantaneous relief by a general and serious aggravation of the complaint, that the patients had to suffer from the after-effects of the intoxication, from the craving created by it, and then again from a depressing, universal feeling of restlessness, nervous shaking, and ill-health. ”

“ To excite, enliven, en-soul at all costs—is not that the watchword of a relaxed, over-ripe, over-cultured age? The range of all natural sensations had been gone over a hundred times, the soul had grown weary, whereupon the saint and the ascetic invented a new species of stimulants for life. ”

“ As we have already seen, existential therapists very commonly regard anxiety and depression as promising symptoms because they can shake clients out of unfulfilling patterns of living. Anxiety and depression, instead of being viewed as undesirable symptoms to be eliminated, can motivate people to change and grow. Consequently, existential therapists tend to disapprove of the use of drugs in therapy. If clients take pills to reduce anxiety, for example, they will reduce the awareness of motivating pain that, if faced squarely, may bring about a more meaningful, satisfying life. ”

“ When it is physiologically understood that what is called [pg 260] stimulation or excitement is, in absolute fact, a relaxation, a partial paralysis, of one of the most important mechanisms in the animal body, the minute, resisting, compensating circulation, we grasp quickly the error in respect to the action of stimulants in which we have been educated, and obtain a clear solution of the well-known experience that all excitement, all passion, leaves, after its departure, lowness of heart, depression of mind, sadness of spirit. ”

“ Every poison-vice is progressive, and, soon after the introduction of a new stimulant, the majority of individual consumers will find that the habit "grows upon them," as our language aptly expresses it. The direct effect of the poison, hereditary influences, etc., induce a growing depression of vital energy, which, in turn, leads to an increased demand for the means of stimulation. ”

“ For the depression of the vital energy increases with every repetition of the stimulation-process, and in a year after the first dose all the "grateful and exhilarating tonics" of our professional poison-venders can not restore the vigor, the courage, and the cheerfulness which the mere consciousness of perfect health imparts to the total abstainer. A great plurality of all beginners underrate the difficulty of controlling the cravings of a morbid appetite. ”

“ All stimulants, narcotics, tonics, which affect the nervous system in whatever way, reduce the truthfulness of sensation, thought, and action. Toward insanity all such influences lead; and their effect, slight though it be, is of the same nature as mania. The man who would see clearly, think truthfully, and act effectively, must avoid them all. Emergency aside, he can not safely force upon his nervous system even the smallest falsehood. And here lies the one great unanswerable argument for total abstinence; not abstinence from alcohol alone, but from all nerve poisons and emotional excesses. ”

“ Moreover, it appears to me that the facts just alluded to afford a reasonable explanation of why it so often happens that persons who indulge in small quantities of spirits while engaged in arduous mental labor frequently suffer from a sudden mental breakdown, notwithstanding that the immediate effect of the stimulants had appeared to be beneficial to them by increasing their brain-power. ”

“ Hypochondriacs who begin to rely on stimulus, almost without exception find this to be true. They cannot, they will not be moderate. Whatever stimulant they take for relief will create an uncontrollable appetite, a burning passion. The temperament itself lies in the direction of insanity. ”

“ First, those who have had healthy and temperate parents, and have been educated and accustomed to good influences, moral and social, but whose temperament and physical constitution are such that when they once indulge in the use of stimulants, which they find pleasurable, they continue to habitually indulge till they cease to be moderate, and become excessive drinkers. A depraved appetite is established that leads them on slowly, but surely, to destruction. ”

“ But let the habit go forward, the excitement be often repeated, and soon a deep-wrought physical effect will be produced; a headlong and almost delirious appetite, of the nature of a physical necessity, will have seized the whole man as with iron arms, and crushed from his heart the power of self-control.
My whole nature was almost constantly demanding and crying out for stimulants. During the period that I abstained from them, and for two weeks before I touched or tasted them the last time, my agony was unbearable. ”

“ Whatever may have been the patient's responsibility in beginning the use of narcotics or stimulants (and I usually find, in the case of opium-eaters, that its degree has been very small indeed, therapeutic use often fixing the habit forever before a patient has convalesced far enough even to know what he is taking) habituation invariably tends to reduce the man to the automatic plane, in which the will returns wholly to the tutelage of sensation and emotion, as it was in infancy ”

“ The fact that the excessive use of stimulants for a long period of time has caused a radical change, physically, mentally and morally, is not only the strongest possible proof that its entire absence is necessary, but, also, that it requires a liberal allowance of time to effect a return to a normal condition. ”

“ Patients must be warned that if they become overtired, if they lose sleep, if they are subject to much excitement, if they put themselves in conditions of anxiety and worry, if any form of recurrent pain develops—headache, toothache, stomach-ache—they are likely to be tempted to take up their old habit. If they are in a position where they can easily get the drug it is almost inevitable that something will happen to make them feel that {713} they are justified in taking one or two doses and from this to the reestablishment of the habit is only a small step. ”

“ Motivation and cognition may be altered, making the acquisition of new information difficult. Marijuana can also produce paranoia and psychosis.
Because users often inhale the unfiltered smoke deeply and then hold it in their lungs as long as possible, marijuana is damaging to the lungs and pulmonary system. Marijuana smoke contains more cancer-causing agents than tobacco.
Long-term users of cannabis may develop psychological dependence and require more of the drug to get the same effect. The drug can become the center of their lives. ”

“ The emerging evidence strongly suggests that cannabis exposure during adolescence increases an adult’s individual vulnerability to drug addiction and schizophrenia and may also produce long-lasting effects on anxiety and mood disorders. ”

“ Although a small fraction of teens that use cannabis develop schizoaffective disorders, a number of epidemiological studies repeatedly demonstrate elevated risk to develop these psychiatric disorders in association with early-life cannabis use. ”

“ However, there are ethnic and genetic variants. It should be noted that individuals who are homozygous for the VAL/VAL alleles in the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) genotype tend to be at enhanced risk. Those individuals who are homozygous for the MET/MET alleles in the COMT genotype tend to be not at enhanced risk. [1] In addition, the usage of cannabis has been linked with an earlier age of onset of psychosis [16] . Previous meta-analysis has reported that the average age of onset of psychosis for cannabis users was 2.70 years younger as compared to normal controls [16] . ”

“ Whilst there has been much research and evidence examining the association between cannabis usage and major mental disorders, a recent meta-analysis has found an association between cannabis use and personality traits [18] . It has been demonstrated that on-going cannabis usage is associated with much higher scores of global, positive, and disorganized schizotypal personality traits [18] . Of importance, current research has reported that cannabis usage is associated with an elevated risk of suicide in those with and without psychosis [19] . ”

“ The earliest mental symptoms are change of character, increased irritability, less feeling of accountability, a lower moral tone, moral perversion, diminished stability, loss of interest, lessened power of concentration and self-control, impulsive acts, anxiety or the opposite condition of mind, perverted or exaggerated force of the emotions, restlessness, apprehension, sleeplessness, impaired will, slight depression or barely noticeable exhilaration: things and persons seem changed in some vague, unexplained way. ”

“ Finally, Adler felt that, over the course of their lives, many people strengthen these basic mistakes while in pursuit of the ultimately unsatisfying desires for attention, power, revenge, or escape. Their styles of living may lead to depression, chronic anxiety, crime, alcoholism, drug abuse, and other problems. ”

“ Fear and anxiety bring with them a particular kind of physical fatigue which makes us listless and inert. They lie on the spirit with a leaden dullness, which takes from us all possibility of energy and motion. Who does not know the instinct, when one is crushed and tortured by depression, to escape into solitude and silence, and to let the waves and streams flow over one. That is a universal instinct, and it is not wholly to be disregarded; it shows that to torture oneself into rational activity is of little use, or worse than useless. ”

“ Anxiety, irritation, hatred, all tend to the vitiation of the disposition and bodily functions, perverting the character and constitution at the same time. Depravity of thought and secretion go together. Degradation of mind and corruption of the body are concomitants. ”

“ Better labor for years steadily, diligently, doing every day only what the night’s rest can repair, avoiding those cheating stimulants that overtax Nature, and illustrating the sayings of the pulpit by the daily life in the family, than to pass life in exaltations and depressions, resulting from overstrained labors, supported by unnatural stimulus. ”

“ It is obvious that individual responsibility is central to existential therapy. You are responsible for the person you choose to become. You may choose to be genuine, or you may choose to lie to yourself and others. It is when you abdicate responsibility for becoming authentic that you will often come to feel anxiety and a sense of guilt. Anxiety and guilt are often present, in other {147} words, when there is a fundamental lack of congruence, of being whole, of being in accord with yourself. ”