Category: Mental Health

Supporting a loved one or friend going through drug recovery can be a heavy burden, but it can also be an incredibly rewarding experience. We all want to save those we love, but the knowledge that some of what we do might be in vain can be just as crushing as thinking we contributed to a loved one’s downfall. With that in mind, it’s also important to recognize the responsibility we have to those we care about to do our best in endeavoring to help them. But for support to be effective, we must draw a distinction between help and ‘help’.

The best support a person can offer someone in recovery is the kind that helps them rise to the occasion and become a better person. Support that involves taking away harm and hardship from those we love can help, but given certain context, may not always be best.

Perhaps you shouldn’t shield them from the consequences of their actions, but neither should you place pitfalls in their path. You don’t have to let them struggle to pay the bills for their recovery, but they should contribute somehow, especially given the therapeutic importance of maintaining employment during the recovery process. You can help in every way you choose to but need to create boundaries and list consequences should your trust be betrayed. Addiction is an illness, and your friend may be sick, but it’s often with good intentions that we enable the very behavior we’re trying to eliminate.

The best path forward is one wherein you help your loved one grow stronger, without enabling their bad habits. Walking that fine line between warding off unnecessary pain and watching someone work through the challenges they face as a result of their actions can be difficult, but important. But where does one start?

Talk to Them About Helping

The first step is arguably the simplest, and just involves talking. Ask your loved one what they might need. It’s not easy to ask for help, and some might feel that it’s a sign of weakness. It’s different to accept help from a friend, however, when they offer it. If you’ve wondered why your friend or loved one has never said a word saying that they needed someone around, consider that perhaps they’re ashamed or worried, or even scared of the repercussions. Addiction is not an easy beast to beat, and one of the ways in which it makes itself felt is through recurring negative thoughts and feelings of guilt and shame.

A good way to subvert that problem is to make the first move. Just talk to your loved one and make it clear to them that you’re available and ready to help. Be careful about saying ‘need’ or ‘want’. It’s best to leave out any allusion to only being available should your friend really ‘need’ you, as they’ll do their best to avoid asking you for help in that case. The same goes for ‘wanting’ your help, as they may worry about inconveniencing you, or falsely believe that a recovery journey is something they must do alone. Instead, just make it clear that you’re there to help in any capacity you can, without a ‘need’ or ‘want’ from your friend.

Keep in Touch

When you say you’re available, you have to mean it. Be available, even if only in some small capacity during certain times throughout the day. If you have a job that requires you to be completely focused and off any communication devices, then be sure to mention that to your friend. If you made a promise to be available around the clock (which isn’t recommended), follow through on that promise.

The best way to help your friend and still live your own life is to not help out alone. It’s best to get together with a group of other friends or relatives and work out a response plan, so when your recovering friend gets in touch with someone who is unavailable, they can try to contact the next person for help instead.

A person in recovery sometimes needs an emergency button to press. It’s important to have someone to talk to when the weight of it all becomes unbearable, or when the cravings feel overwhelming. Simply being around for a conversation over the phone or a few text messages and a quick call can make a difference.

Read About Addiction and Recovery

Addiction and addiction treatment are complex topics, and your help would be much more effective if you’ve done your homework. While basic topics and a general breadth of knowledge regarding mental health and addiction can be a great start, it makes a tremendous difference to know what your friend is struggling with specifically and learning more about them and their issues. If your loved one has a dual diagnosis of both addiction and depression, for example, understanding how these two illnesses co-exist and affect one another is important.

There are countless resources out there to help you better understand various topics of mental health, as well as resources aimed specifically at preparing relatives and friends of recovering addicts for the potential challenges and issues that may lie ahead.

Encourage Seeking Therapy and Other Options

Knowing a friend is going (or has gone) through rehab isn’t enough to ensure that you’re doing the most you can for their recovery. Recovery doesn’t end after the residential treatment program has ended, but often rather begins once all programs are through and sober living truly begins.

Encouraging a loved one to seek out post-program recovery options is important in order to keep them away from a potential relapse. A therapist can be crucial in this, guiding a patient to other recovery resources (from groups and events to books and seminars), and helping them process the emotional turmoil of early recovery.

In the same way, it makes a tremendous difference to encourage your friend to engage in healthier and more responsible habits – together. Avoid old hangouts and bars when heading out to have fun. Eat healthier and exercise together, either at the gym or through other sports and activities.

Take Care of Your Own Needs

It’s important not to forget that if you make the mistake of sacrificing your wellbeing to help your friend, you’ll only be placing more guilt and pain on their shoulders. This isn’t a game of equivalent exchange – you don’t have to give your life up to help your friend get theirs back. Take care of your own needs and happiness, manage your stress levels, and share the responsibility of helping a recovering addict with other friends and relatives you know.

You and your loved one can both lead happy and fulfilling lives, provided you both learn to manage your own mental and physical wellbeing over time.

Addiction and depression are, unfortunately, commonly intertwined. One may often lead to the other, and while the relationship between the two may seem straightforward at first, there are several unexpected and interlinking factors. To understand why the two are common, it’s important to understand what depression is, what addiction is, and how one relates to the other.

What Is a Depression?

Depression is characterized by a period of a consistently low mood and melancholy. If a person is sad or down every day for at least two weeks, they may be diagnosed with a depressive issue. This does not make someone ‘crazy’, and it does not necessarily mean their depression is caused by hereditary problems or neurobiology.

A long depressive period following the loss of a loved one is known as complex or complicated grief, and is an issue tackled separately from depression. Depression usually comes out of nowhere, and periods or episodes of sadness often do not have to be ‘triggered’ to occur.

Ethnic minorities, adults between the ages of 45 and 64, women, members of the LGBTQ community and people who are chronically unemployed and/or unable to afford medical insurance are more likely to be depressed, and share some of the highest risk of depression, according to current data. The truth is that only a fraction of people who are diagnosed with a depression go on to get the help they need, and among them only a percentage ever finish a treatment course – and there are many more who may be struggling with a depressive episode or a set of depressive symptoms without ever speaking out about these issues. As such, depression is likely more common than a lot of data may suggest.

What Is an Addiction?

While an addiction can colloquially mean several different things, the American Psychiatric Association refers to addiction as a complex brain disease characterized by compulsive drug use despite certain harmful consequences. While using drugs is not a form of addiction, using them excessively without the ability to stop, and continuing to use them even after you’ve tried to stop, is addiction.

An addiction may be physical, in the sense that the person is unable to stop due to the onset of strong cravings and physical symptoms of withdrawal, but it can also manifest emotionally, in the sense that the primary reason drug use is continued is because the person is relying on drugs as a way to cope with external and internal stressors, including abuse, feelings of anxiety, poverty, and more.

One Then the Other

There are different reasons why an addict may find themselves struggling with depression, and different reasons why someone with depression may turn to drugs. Drug use, especially drugs that are easier to access and generally cheaper than others such as alcohol, are a highly effective way to cope with feelings of depression and anxiety in the short term because these drugs offer a powerful jolt of positive emotions and chemically-induced happiness.

However, they also cause a crash afterwards, and generally lead to higher levels of anxiety and depression, further fueling a destructive and vicious cycle of drug use as a way to stave off unapproachable pain and negativity.

On the other hand, drug use can also heavily contribute to the development of a depression to begin with. While there are more drug users with mental health issues than in the general public, only a portion of these turned to drugs as a way to cope with existing issues. Others developed mental health problems due to their drug use. While drugs like heroin and methamphetamine release a powerful high, they also desensitize you to many other forms of joy. Methamphetamine in particular can potentially damage the serotonergic pathways and can cause anhedonia, or the inability to feel pleasure. This can lead to the development of depression and other issues as well.

In many cases, a depression is more likely to fuel relapses because it becomes harder to maintain sobriety and continue working on your recovery while still depressed. This is why it becomes critical to approach both depression and addiction simultaneously – treatment has to consider both together and the ways they interact.

Treatment Must Be Holistic

A holistic treatment is one that examines the whole, rather than the parts. Addiction treatment should, ideally, consider each individual’s unique challenges and circumstances. Someone from a specific background with a challenging upbringing and a history of traumatic experiences is going to require a different approach in treatment than someone who found themselves living a more sheltered life, as a general example.

To be more specific, certain conditions and disorders can heavily complicate the treatment process, requiring an approach that sees a person as more than a collection of symptoms.

To treat depression and anxiety, both have to be addressed concurrently. A psychiatric professional with experience in addiction medicine can help someone with a dual diagnosis through a better understanding of how two diagnoses can play into each other, and the common complications that arise when trying to treat addiction with depression. For example, it’s harder to prevent relapses and help someone remain consistently sober when the additional pressure of depression weighs down on the already challenging aspects of recovery. Therapy must be guided to consider all symptoms, and medication – such as antidepressants – may come into strong consideration.

Patience is key, as is preparing a patient’s expectations. Addiction recovery can be frustrating, and an additional diagnosis does not make things any easier. Rather than place great importance on perfect behavior, it’s more important to accept that mishaps and speed bumps are a part of the recovery journey. The person undergoing treatment and their friends and family must understand the possible challenges that may lay ahead, depending on the circumstances at hand.

Treating a dual diagnosis is tough, but by no means impossible. People have been known to overcome addiction and depression – but there is no one set treatment. Some people recover and improve faster than others, and it’s important to seek support to help maintain a hopeful outlook. No matter how dark things may get, having friends and family around can save your life.

Addiction and mental illness often coexist for various reasons. Sometimes, the symptoms of undiagnosed mental illness can push someone to the point where they seek out ways of feeling better, until they reach addiction. Sometimes, the circumstances surrounding the addiction paved the way for symptoms to develop that ultimately led to a diagnosis.

Either way, people who suffer from alcohol use disorder or a form of drug abuse are likely to have a mental illness as well – a study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse discovered that people who are diagnosed with what is considered a ‘severe mental illness’ were 4 times more likely to be a heavy drinker (daily consumption beyond the recommended maximum of three drinks), 4.6 times more likely to consume other drugs at least ten times in their lifetime, and at least 5.1 times more likely to be daily smokers than the rest of the population.

Among the many mental disorders this study identified, mood and anxiety disorders were the most common. There is a link between addiction and anxiety, potentially due to similar issues with neurotransmission, or due to similar risk factors. To identify the link and understand why anxiety continues to play a major role in addiction recovery, it’s important to examine the relationship between anxiety and addiction.

Nothing but Fear Itself

Fear is normal, and a part of our natural response to certain stimuli. Fear is not cowardice or a matter of morality, it’s an instinct. How we choose to act on our fears is usually within our power – those who overcome their fears or act against them for some greater good are lauded and called brave.

But there are times when fear is too pervasive and insipid to simply overcome through willpower alone. In other cases, it doesn’t have to be especially powerful, but begins to wear someone down through its constancy.

Anxieties manifest as phobias and as other anxiety disorders, such as generalized anxiety, social anxiety, panic attacks, post-traumatic stress, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Each of these issues is drive by fear – phobias are fears so powerful that they are debilitating and leaves someone preoccupied with their fears despite no present trigger, and OCD is a condition characterized by compulsive behavior driven by an obsession triggered through irrational fears, such as a fear of germs, fear of a personal conspiracy, or fear of unknown and unseen retribution.

Addiction feeds on anxiety. Many who struggle with fear also fear getting treated. Anxieties are very difficult to deal with, and any form of mental illness comes with a strong stigma attached to it. Thus, some are damned if they do, damned if they don’t – without the right help, they spend a lifetime struggling to fit into a world that doesn’t understand their anxiety, and with the right help, they feel they will be ostracized, or perceived weak.This produces even more worries, more anxieties, more fears. All this fear causes stress, peaking through panic attacks and episodes of extreme hyperventilation, when the body reacts violently to the perceived stress it’s under on a consistent basis. Drug use can mellow out the fears, but without addressing the root cause. Like a band aid on a faucet, addicts are compelled continue self-medicating with addictive drugs to stem the fears, only for them to come back stronger after each high, left unaddressed and bottled up inside. Eventually, what started out as a mild anxiety gets worse, and what was already severe can become unbearable.

Addiction and Anxiety

The vicious cycle of addiction involves fear and guilt, especially the fear of relapse and the guilt of being addicted. To many, despite evidence to the contrary, addiction is still something very personal defined by choice and responsibility. Some people continue to tell themselves that their behavior is entirely their fault, and that the fact that they can’t stop without help confirms that they’re weak.

This self-destructive thinking further feeds fears related to inadequacy, hopelessness, and powerlessness, coupled with the urge to use again as a way to deal with all this emotional stress.

At the root of all this is the fear of relapse. The crux of addiction treatment is to help addicts find ways to avoid using again. But if they are not at peace with themselves and confident in their abilities to stay sober, they’re much more likely to relapse. That relapse renews a slew of debilitating fears and pulls someone deeper down the cascading spiral of addiction.

Overcoming anxiety is crucial to overcoming relapses and moving forward in recovery. Recovery, when coupled with a diagnosable illness or emotional and behavioral issues that border on a diagnosis, must address both the addiction as well as these issues. Anxiety can be treated through medication, but the most important part of anxiety treatment is effective therapy. Through professional help, an addict can make progress towards overcoming fears and anxieties, with medication if needed.

Anxious About People

Recovery is not just about no longer using drugs, but it’s also about building a new life for yourself. This can be especially scary because it often involves a series of encompassing changes, from the way you live to where you live and who you live with. Part of slowly adjusting to regular life outside of rehab and other treatment facilities is learning to trust others again and learning to trust yourself.

This is much harder to do when you’re preoccupied with anxieties around being with other people. Fear that they will hurt you, talk smack about you behind your back, and hold low opinions of you are all common thoughts to have, especially when meeting new people. These thoughts can make recovery extremely difficult if left unchecked. You must speak with a professional if you’re constantly afraid, especially of opening up to others.

Do You Need Help?

There’s being anxious, and then there’s an anxiety disorder. It’s best not to try and diagnose yourself off the internet – if you think you need help, go and find a professional psychiatrist and/or doctor, and get the opinion of a medical expert. Be sure to mention that you’re a recovering addict, as that is important when making a diagnosis.

Based on what the doctor says, the path forward will be very different. Treating an addiction is one thing, but when coupled with a mental illness, treatment has to take both into consideration at the same time. Either way, anxiety and addiction are often treated together, and the key will be staying committed to the recovery process.

If you or your loved ones are struggling with addiction, chances are your mental health has also suffered for it. Research shows that under certain stressors, we’re more prone to develop long-term negative side effects, both physically and mentally. Teens and adults faced with stigma and self-loathing can develop depressive symptoms, to the point of suicide. And addiction drives these thoughts to the foreground, as it nearly always puts people in a bad place socially, financially, and mentally. Addiction affects the brain in more ways than one, making it more susceptible to thoughts of anxiety and depression, as well as causing long-term damage.

Addiction is a matter of mental illness and having a mental illness can make you more prone to addiction. This dangerous relationship adds another layer to addiction treatment, making treatment not only a matter of sobriety, but a matter of psychiatry. Taking someone off the drugs isn’t enough. You have to help them deal with their own mind after the drugs wear off and help them find a way to never rely on them again.

Why Mental Health and Addiction Are Intertwined

Our ability to overcome life’s challenges is dependent on how we individually react to events in our lives, rather than the objective magnitude of the events themselves. That’s why it’s so hard to gauge what is challenging, what is painful, and what is traumatic. These are all subjective things, different for everyone. And it’s impossible to know how to live someone else’s life until you’ve lived it.

Sometimes, though, we can guess. This helps us empathize and feel compassion towards others around us, who are less fortunate, especially those who struggle with disability and loss of limb. But it’s harder to gauge how a person’s mental health makes life hard. At first glance, you can’t see depression, or general anxiety, or a case of OCD. But it surely plays a massive role in how life plays out, and how hard things feel. Things we take for granted – like the ability to make friends, wake up and get the day started at a normal hour, or fall asleep every night – may be almost impossible for someone with social anxiety, or depression, or insomnia.

Addiction, Mental Health, and Stigma

People with mental health issues don’t get better by ‘getting themselves together’. That kind of advice doesn’t help someone with a mental disorder. It only serves to make them feel worse about themselves. And that feeling feeds into what many people with mental illness already feel: shame.

People who struggle with mental health issues are also more likely to get addicted to drugs. And they’re more sensitive to the stigma attached to drug use. If you make someone feel like a failure for being an addict, they’ll add that to an ever-growing list of personal gripes, fears, and self-deprecating thoughts. It’s why it’s important, now more than ever, to recognize that mental health and addiction are issues that need to be addressed with compassion and empathy, rather than judgment. Because no matter how we might feel about how we’ve dealt with life’s challenges, there are others who don’t live and think like most people do.

Sometimes, these issues start early in life. Sometimes, however, they manifest and don’t develop fully until triggered. Drug use, for example, isn’t just potentially the result of mental health issues, but it can cause them to develop and metastasize. Mental health issues and addiction are intertwined because they’re both diseases of the brain, and because they’re both something that society struggles to identify and empathize with.

Of course, not everyone with mental health problems gets addicted to drugs. Most don’t, in fact. But far more addicts struggle with related mental health problems (such as depression and anxiety) than the general population. If you have a history of addiction, you need to consider your own mental health.

Professional Help Can Prevent Relapses

Mental disorders aren’t solved by prayer or willpower, although both of these things can help. The will to feel better and the readiness to ask for help both on a spiritual and social level is important. But so is professional help. Psychiatrists are trained to help patients in all walks and stages of life, including patients who have a mental disorder on top of an addiction. If you’ve been sober for a while but don’t quite feel right, it doesn’t hurt to visit a professional and talk about your feelings.

Most people don’t wake up and realize they’re ill. It’s a slow process, and you might not realize that the way you’re feeling is much out of the ordinary. Or, you might hope it passes. Getting help as soon as you feel that something is wrong can help potentially prevent a relapse, or other negative developments.

There’s More to Mental Health Than Medication

Some people fear that if they approach a mental health professional about a potential mental illness, they’re just going to be written off with a short, mindless diagnosis and a prescription. If you’re worried that your addiction won’t be taken into account, you can put your fears to rest by visiting an addiction specialist – one of many psychiatric professionals in the US who specialize in helping patients with addiction.

However, any reputable psychiatrist will think long and hard before prescribing anything. Mental health treatment is always more complicated than just a pill. Most doctors prescribe medication as well as therapy, as well as potential alternative treatments, from new imports like yoga and mindfulness, to more invasive treatments in cases of treatment-resistance, like neuromodulation.

What You Can Do at Home

If you’re working on your sobriety but are conscious of the fact that addiction can leave lasting emotional and psychological scarring, consider working on improving your mental health by taking up practices and hobbies that not only in certain cases help alleviate symptoms of depression and anxiety, but also work to prevent them.

• Mindfulness Training
• Journaling
• Art Therapy
• Music Therapy
• Group Meetings
• Creative Writing
• Exercise
• Balanced Diet
• Normal Sleeping Schedule (8 hours or more, before midnight)

Outside of a few basic principles like a healthy diet and a normal sleeping schedule, you don’t have to do these every day – doing one or two of these things regularly is enough.

By all accounts, addiction can be characterized as a brain disease. We largely understand that it has something to do with the dopaminergic reward circuit/pathway, but the exact mechanism of addiction remains largely unknown. What is known is that addiction is chronic in nature, causing recurring bouts of cravings and severe wanting, and sometimes recurring withdrawal symptoms, weeks after sobriety begins.

The way addiction attacks the brain and changes how people process their priorities and pleasures suggests that it also has an effect on an individual’s susceptibility to certain mental disorders, triggering or exacerbating them if the right risk factors were already there.

The statistics are damning, when considering the other angle. People who have been diagnosed with a mental health disorder at some point of their lives are responsible for nearly 70 percent of alcohol consumption, 84 percent of cocaine consumption, and 68 percent of cigarette consumption. People who are sick are prone to self-medicate, especially if they don’t seek answers from a mental health professional, or if their first professional of choice couldn’t treat them right. This often leaves them vulnerable to the effects of addiction.

But what about the other way around? It seems that research also supports that getting addicted puts you at greater risk for developing different mental health issues, for a variety of reasons. Let’s go over how addiction affects a person’s mental health – and why it’s important to treat a person not only for the physical and mental symptoms of drug misuse, but for all the additional emotional trauma they may be suffering as a result of their addiction.

Addiction and Depression

Certain drugs are more prone to triggering a depression than others. Alcohol, a widely-available drug sometimes used to suppress fears and anxieties actually increases the risk of depression. Alcohol is a depressant. This does not mean the drug actively causes depression, but it does cause your brain and body to “slow down”, giving you the effect of lethargy, low mood, and decreased mental arousal. The days slur together, as does your speech, and long-term alcohol use can begin to actively eat away at your memory and cognitive ability, increasing stress and strife while sober, eventually triggering a potential depressive episode.

Other drugs can also trigger a depression by way of their effect on your life. Many try to hide their drug use, for their parents or partners or coworkers, but someone trapped in an addiction is bound to slip and struggle with their behavior as time goes on, leading to significant consequences including breakups, job loss, and more. This can send a person into a depression as they find their lives falling apart, scared of looking for help out of fear that it would confirm that they have a problem they cannot fix alone.

Addiction and Anxiety

Drug use can also send a person’s anxieties spiraling through the roof. Alcohol, for example, explicitly calms the nerves – but it also causes anxiety to spike upon sobriety. Long-term alcohol use is known as a maladaptive coping mechanism for a condition like anxiety – while it does introduce a short-term calming effect and thus qualifies as way to cope with anxiety, this manner of coping is inherently flawed because it ultimately introduces even more problems, making your anxiety worse while leaving you to struggle with other problems.

There are healthier ways to cope with anxiety, and better ways to calm down. Other drugs actively make anxiety worse or trigger an anxiety disorder in individuals who do not have one, from relatively harmless and nonaddictive drugs like caffeine, to harmful and addictive drugs like cocaine and amphetamine.

Addiction and Trauma, Trauma and Mental Health

A more tragic fact is that people who struggle with substance abuse are more likely to experience traumatic events, including violence, sexual violence, and emotional abuse. There is a high correlation between trauma and mental health issues – trauma is any event the brain fails to process normally, leaving behind a form of mental scar tissue that causes various different symptoms.

Trauma early on in a person’s development can even trigger certain personality disorders, requiring very rigorous treatment. Later on in life, trauma is prone to triggering post-traumatic stress disorder, various forms of depression, and more.

Like other mental health issues, trauma and addiction must be treated concurrently. One is bound to feed in to the other, and only by addressing the full spectrum of symptoms can a person effectively find peace and be emotionally healthy again.

A Downward Spiral

The defining characteristic of addiction is the cascading spiral racing towards rock bottom. But that doesn’t have to be the case, for anybody. The idea that an addict has to hit a particular point in their addiction to “see the light” is false. It does take time and a dedicated group of friends or family, but a proper plan towards intervening in an addict’s life and helping them accept the idea of seeking treatment together is possible far before they come to the point where they can sink no further.

Don’t wait for yourself or your loved one to hit a rock bottom before you get help. In the worst case, the rock bottom is one you or your loved one will never recover from.

That being said, an addiction paired with a significant mental illness may progress faster that you might expect. Someone who is depressed would likely struggle with drug use very quickly, especially as they discover the euphoric effects of any given drug. The feeling of being depressed off the drug would only be further accentuated, causing the need for the next high to grow. This form of emotional dependence can kick in long before an actual physical dependence is established, providing an example for the clear distinction between a psychological need for a drug, and the neurological dependence on a substance after a certain point.

If you or your loved one has never been diagnosed with a mental health issue but has exhibited symptoms of potential depression, anxiety, or strange personality traits that make it more likely for them to fall victim to severe self-esteem issues, toxic relationships and traumatic interpersonal experiences, then it’s likely that these factors will compound with drug use and accelerate the development of a mental health issue.

Early recovery is often seen as the hardest part in getting sober. After the initial hurdles of detoxification and withdrawal, it’s time to face the emotional and psychological effects of long-term addiction. For many, going sober is not just a matter of foregoing drugs, but it’s a matter of giving up the comfort and coping power that drugs have.

There is a reason depression and addiction are so powerfully intertwined, and it has a lot to do with the brain, how it reacts to drug use, and how addiction promotes and feeds on a painful cycle of negative thinking.

Why Depression and Addiction Go Hand in Hand

Depression and addiction are often intertwined, either because depression led someone to become addicted, or the addiction led them down the path to depression. The reason both go hand-in-hand is because they revolve around negative thinking. While addiction is technically all about feeling good, the reality is that when drug use goes out of hand, it very quickly turns into an abusive relationship.

There are two forms of dependence in addiction – one is physical, and the other is emotional. An emotional dependence is marked by a reliance on drug use as a coping mechanism for emotional pain. Take for example a teen who is completely hooked to the smartphone. In one way, there is a natural incentive to pay attention to the phone, as it is integral for modern social behavior. But teens can become completely lost in technology, barely interacting with the real world and instead retreating to online conversations, social networks, and video games.

When this begins to affect their concentration, their responsibilities, and their behavior towards others, it’s clear that there is a negative impact at play. Yet trying to pull this teen away from their phone could result in verbal and physical backlash, and an emotional breakdown. They have developed an emotional dependence on the device as a way to cope with some form of stress, from trouble at school to a lack of connection with others.

This is a crude and simple example, and most examples are far more complex and require a greater understanding of the situation and all the facts, but emotional dependence can lead to extreme outbursts of negative emotion, including anger and depression.

If a person relies on drugs to feel better, then getting off drugs can rob them of an efficient, albeit harmful coping mechanism. This is where PAWS often develops.

What is Post-Acute Withdrawal Syndrome?

Post-acute withdrawal syndrome is a disorder where withdrawal symptoms persist long after the drug has left the body. They can be seen as aftershocks of the since-gone physical dependence, and come in the form of mood swings, cravings, and a rollercoaster of emotions – including depression.

Although these effects are similar to what patients go through during initial withdrawal symptoms at a clinic, they are in fact most likely psychological adaptations – at a certain point of long-term drug use, the brain gets used to the cycle of withdrawal and relapse, and addiction has become a “normal state”. These mental reverberations are the brain basically sorting itself out, and they can often include symptoms of depression or psychosis.

If you present with signs of PAWS, then it’s best to contact a professional and get a proper diagnosis, as well as a plan moving forward.

It Is Important to Seek Help

The danger of developing depressive symptoms during recovery is high, and for various reasons. From aftereffects of the addiction, to an emotional dependence on drugs to deal with other problems, to the addiction itself being caused by an underlying depression, many people who go through recovery struggle with negative thoughts, including thoughts of suicide.

This is not something you should be facing alone. Get help and get the support you need to tackle this in a healthy way. Enter into a sober living home. Tackling addiction alone can end in relapse, or worse.

You’re not powerless, of course. There are steps you can take to minimize the danger of developing a depression or another condition while in recovery. For one, you could focus on having fun.

Have Fun Being Sober

There is no telling how long recovery takes – just like addiction itself, it depends highly on each individual’s story and circumstances. Your ability to recover from addiction and move onto a new chapter in your life may differ completely from someone else’s ability to do the same, and that is nothing to be ashamed of, or sad about. Do not compare your progress to others – when it comes to getting sober, the only goal is to get sober and stay sober.

It does not matter how long it takes to get comfortable with your new sober life – what matters is that you get comfortable in the first place. From day one, that might seem like an impossible challenge. For many stepping out of a long term addiction, sobriety can be a painful smack in the face. Accompanying the usual withdrawal symptoms are often long and hard pangs of guilt, as well as painful memories that had been bottled up and avoided through months and years of drug use. The first instinct for many is to try and get away from all those feelings – but as with many things, the only way past it all is straight through it.

It takes a lot of strength and determination to power through the early phase of recovery and come out the other side somehow still hopeful that there is a future for you where you stay clean and happy.

The first step to embracing sobriety is finding out how to become comfortable with it. Here are a few ways to approach that idea:

• Try out old hobbies and see if you still have a knack for them.
• Approach new tasks and experiences, book tickets for events you have never been to, be open to new things.
• Utilize the internet to meet new people, visit workshops, take classes, and join clubs.
• Engage in something physical, anything as long as it’s your definition of fun.
• Take up a creative hobby like playing music, writing, or digital art.
• Try your hand at a long-term project, like wood working, amateur carpentry, or oil painting.

To keep things short – find as many ways as possible to keep yourself busy, and do not be afraid to try out new things. You may just surprise yourself with what truly makes you happy and interests you and finding out exactly what best tickles your fancy is the most effective way to sealing the deal on your sobriety.