We also know that with some addictions/mental illnesses/behaviors, the person does not recognize their need for help and will not take medications or go to therapy. That leaves it up to us to modify our behavior when interacting with them. Not always easy for sure!
We also know that with some addictions/mental illnesses/behaviors, the person does not recognize their need for help and will not take medications or go to therapy. That leaves it up to us to modify our behavior when interacting with them. Not always easy for sure!
During the time I worked with homeless individuals on the street, and while I managed Streicher House Day Center in Nevada City, I came in close contact with many people who, because of lifelong trauma, were addicted substance abusers, or were suffering from severe mental and emotional damage. For those living outside, there are the daily traumas of just staying alive out in the elements. Homeless women are especially in danger of sexual assault.
My mother was a lifelong schizophrenic, and even though she took medications, and was under a doctor’s care, the schizophrenia was never healed. She was able to hold a job, and live somewhat of a normal life, and did not wind up homeless — because she had family and medical care provided by a State hospital in 1965.
Studying mental illness, what causes it, and how does one recover, has been a lifelong endeavor for me. Recently I’ve been reading Dr. Gabor Mate’s book, THE MYTH OF NORMAL: Trauma, Illness, & Healing in a Toxic Culture. I would recommend this book as essential reading for any police department, sheriff’s department, crisis response team, probation department, or Community Corrections Partnership Board. You have to know that the person in front of you, who is irritating, behaving badly, or doing something illegal, is probably the result of lifelong trauma, and more often than not, has no control over their behavior. That’s why they keep reoffending.
In Chapter 15: Debunking the Myths About Addiction
“Addictions represent, in their onset, the defenses of an organism against suffering it does not know how to endure.”
Dr. Mate writes, “If a socially conservative dissenter were to protest, “Didn’t they choose to stay hooked?” I would offer this quote by Dr. Nora Volkow, head of the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse:
“Recent studies have shown that repeated drug use leads to long-lasting changes in the brain that undermine voluntary control.”
Translation: When it comes to addiction, “free will” is in many ways a biological non sequitur.
“In fact, I would take it much further: most addicted people had little choice before their habits took hold. Their brains arrived on the scene already impaired by life experience, especially susceptible to the effects of their ‘drug of choice’ (another dubious expression). Actually, that’s true whether the target is a substance or a behavior. In short, the choice model ignores the question of what would drive a person towards addiction, (the behavior), in the first place.”
“Though the disease paradigm, still embraced by most addiction specialists and treatment programs is more compassionate, it, too, misses the human element. It separates mind from body — or, in this case, brain from mind, seeing the brain in purely biochemical terms. The fact is, personal and social events, filtered through the mind, shape the brain throughout the lifetime. You cannot cleave biology from biography, especially when it comes to a process as psychologically layered as addiction.”
“The brilliant work of Dr. Volkow and others has demonstrated that substances of dependence do, over time, change the brain so that essential functions, such as impulse regulation — which would aid someone in resisting addiction’s pull — become significantly compromised, even as the circuits of reward and motivation become trained on the desired drugs. In this sense, the brain does become an impaired organ, with diminished capacity to make rational choices, obsessively intent instead on satisfying addictive drives.”
“NOTE, too, that ‘treatable’ is a far cry from ‘healable — which says less about the nature of addiction than about the medical system’s (or law enforcement’s) failure to understand it.”
*MY NOTE: addictive behaviors might be gambling, pornography, eating disorders, shopping, constantly playing with your cell phone, Facebook and tiktok, or repetitive criminal activity.
All I’m saying here is that once we truly recognize that the person in front of us, who is acting out and generally annoying everyone, or a repeat offender, may just be a lifelong trauma victim and cannot help the behavior. We also know that with some addictions/mental illnesses/behaviors, the person does not recognize their need for help and will not take medications or go to therapy. That leaves it up to us to modify our behavior when interacting with them. Not always easy for sure!
The best solution is to relate to problematic people, gently, with kindness and respect. Pretty simple! If we can’t do that, then it’s best to just walk away. Don’t engage! If a serious problem arises, call the police and let the crisis team handle the situation.
Pauli Halstead is the author of “Primal Cuisine: Cooking for the Paleo Diet” and Joy Brann, MPH, works in health education and policy.
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