Self-Medication, Drug Abuse and Depression

People who are feeling depressed often turn to drugs for a boost in mood and to alleviate their depressive symptoms. In a study titled, “Drug Abuse and Self-Medication in Depression: women’s inpatient treatment near me“, most patients took drugs as a response to their depressive symptoms. They also experienced elation of mood irrespective of which drug they used.

Roger D. Weissa, Margaret L. Griffinb, and Steven M. Mirinb examined the drug effects of 494 patients who had been hospitalized for drug abuse. Researchers were of opinion that women are more prone than men to rampant drug abuse to alleviate depression.

According to a study called, “The Self Medicine Hypothesis of Substance Abuse Disorders: Reconsideration, and Recent Applications,” individuals discover that each class’s actions or effects relieve or modify a wide range of painful emotional states.

Abstract of the study states that self-medication is a factor in self-regulation vulnerability – particularly difficulties in self-esteem and relationships. Substance abusers are often overwhelmed with emotions, or they don’t feel any at all. Substance abuse helps such people to control or feel emotions that are missing or unclear. Diagnostic studies show that the hypothesis of self-medication for addictive disorders is either supported or not.

This article reviews and criticizes the cause-consequence debate involving substance abuse/addiction and psychopathology. Contrary to this, empirical and clinical studies that concentrate on pain and distressing affects more strongly suggest that states of suffering and emotional distress are key psychological factors in the use of addictive substances, dependence, and relapse. It says that “subjective distress and suffering are examined in relation to the motivations of self-medicating using substances of abuse with nicotine dependence, schizophrenia and posttraumatic disorder.”