Mental illness is a common problem among people with addiction and substance abuse. Evidence indicates that substance abuse for prolonged period or in excessive could result in psychiatric disorders. It has been observed that there is a close link between substance abuse and mental health disorders including anxiety and depression. For instance, people who often use drugs or alcohol to self-medicate symptoms of undiagnosed mental illness for purpose of changing their mood temporarily or to cope with the problematic motions, often leads to side effects and worsens the symptoms in the long run. Additionally, evidence suggests that abuse of drugs could result in increasing the underlying risks for mental illness. Substance abuse can as well interact with medications such as mood stabilizers, anti-anxiety pills, and antidepressants thereby affecting their effectiveness at managing symptoms (Baskin‐Sommers & Hearon, 2015). Therefore, substance abuse might trigger new symptoms or severely increase symptoms of mental illness. This paper seeks to examine the connection between addiction/substance abuse and mental illness from the scientific perspective of inquiry and mathematical/analytical perspective of inquiry.
Scientific Perspective of Inquiry
Substance abuse disorders and mental illness share a robust connection. They both tend to occur together more often than what could be associated to chance. In addition, they tend to impact on each other in a significant way. Mental illness and substance abuse often give rise to anatomical, physiological, pathological, or epidemiological issues thereby increasing susceptibility of an individual to health-related problems. Examples of physiological issues of mental health include depression, anxiety, and disorientation among others (Baskin‐Sommers & Hearon, 2015).
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Mental illness affects certain body parts including regions of the brain. Addiction causes distinctive changes in the brain region and this can interrupt the individual’s “hierarchy of desires and needs” thus prompting them to prioritize on using drugs above everything else. It significantly diminishes the ability of a person to control the urge to use drugs prompting bran changes to take place, which can foster continuous alcohol or drug use despite having awareness of its harm it has on the body. The compulsive behaviors linked with related substance addictions match that of other mental disorders (Baskin‐Sommers & Hearon, 2015).
Additionally, mental disorders changes behavior, mood, and thinking of an individual. It affects the ability of an individual to focus or behave in a proper manner, thus influencing the way they make decisions and how they relate with others. Other implications include causing visual and auditory hallucinations or unwanted, disturbing thoughts regarding basic facets of reality as well as affecting the ability of a person to function due to the disorder. Moreover, mental illness and substance abuse affect the neurological mechanisms involved in dopaminergic regulation and stress response recognized as precipitating factors both in substance use disorders and in psychiatric disorders (Baskin‐Sommers & Hearon, 2015).
Baskin‐Sommers and Hearon (2015). Mental disorders are facilitated by a complex interplay of internal and external factors such as genetics and environment. A person who is at risk of mental illness, substance abuse may result in adverse health impacts. For instance, evidence indicates that abuse of opioid painkillers increases risk for depression, while abuse of marijuana increases risk of psychosis. It has been hypothesized that common genetic factors may be shared in both substance use disorders and mental disorders. For instance, at cellular or genetic levels, a common genetic vulnerability may describe dopamine dysregulation in mental illness and substance abuse.
According to Baskin‐Sommers and Hearon (2015). There are biological or chemical issues that are most important. Evidence shows that substance abuse activate the underlying biological vulnerability for mental disorders. These observations have been used in the biochemical and genetic studies exploring the underlying mechanisms of emergence mental illness among people with substance abuse disorders.
Mathematical/Analytical Perspective of Inquiry
Mental health is an important part of public health and have substantial impact on the economic capital of the country. Mental health is resource that supports the overall productivity and well-being of an individual allowing them to work productively and contribute to society. Mental capital is a vital for healthy functioning of society, community, and families (Hodder et al., 2016). Therefore, mental health is a crucial economic factor and maintenance of mental health is very important in sustaining productivity, hence contributing to economic prosperity and growth.
Hodder at al. (2016) state that mental health disorders continue to pose huge economic burden in the United States and across the world especially in low-and middle-income nations. Despite mental health disorders having a huge impact on the quality of life, mental health systems are highly under-developed and under resourced. The economic issues involved in the connection between mental health disorder and substance abuse include resource inappropriateness, resource timing, resource inflexibility, resource information, and information barrier. Additionally ineffective financing mechanisms is also an issue that has hindered prioritization and protection of mental health care budgets, lack of adequate training resources to improve identification and treatment of mental health challenges, poor coordination between professionals and agencies both at micro and at macro-levels. Thus, these issues contribute to economic barriers to improving equity, efficiency, accessibility, and availability of mental health care.
The multi-faceted barrier of resource scarcity has been identified as a common elements running across all the economic issues involved in mental illness and substance abuse. Availability of resources is inadequate at right times or in the right places, or allocated correctly, impacts negatively on the ability to meet the mental health needs of populations. Resource scarcity takes different forms, which interfere with the relationship between societal outcomes, processes, services, and funding of mental health systems. Evidence-based practice, decision-making, and planning can assist in improving the quality of life and health status of individuals struggling with mental health issues and promote improved equity and efficiency in allocation of resources (Hodder et al., 2016).
The economic theory that best explain the connection between mental health and substance abuse include the behavioral economic theory. This theory projects that the basic contextual impacts of substance abuse are both availability and accessibility to drugs that reinforce the underlying mental health disorders. The behavioral theory combines both primary concepts from behavioral psychology and economics, which explain the way individuals, allocate their behavior in different activities in different times. The major element of a behavioral economic approach to drug abuse is the association between the supports obtained from substance abuse in relation to the support acquired from substance-free activities. Various treatments have been designed to enable individuals especially those at risk of developing mental health disorder, to engage in substance-abuse activities thus addressing the problem. Understanding the functional relationship between mental health disorder and substance abuse have proven to prevent an improve mental health, which also inform treatment efforts. The goals of the economic behavioral theory is to account for forms of behavioral allocation to use of drugs and substance-free alternatives as opposed to disconnected occurrences of substance use. Therefore, reinforcement of positive behaviors among substance abusers helps in preventing triggering of underlying mental health disorders among individuals at risks thus helps in preventing development or worsening of symptoms of mental health (Correia, Murphy, Irons & Vasi, 2010). Thus, economic behavioral theory helps to provide a clear explanation of the connection between substance abuse and mental health as well as how promotion of substance-free activities among individuals with addiction problem could help to minimize the economic burden of mental disorders.
Various research groups have provided the statistical facts related to the association between mental illness and substance abuse. For instance, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) has shown that there is a definite relationship between use of substance abuse and mental health disorder. Patients with mental illness have been found to use addictive substances including 40% of cigarettes, 44% of cocaine, and 38% of alcohol. Additionally, NBER reports that individuals diagnosed with mental illness at one point in their lifetime have been found to consume 68% of cigarettes, 84% of cocaine, and 69% of alcohol. Thus, these statistical facts provides a clear explanation of the association between mental health disorders and drug addiction. Another report from the Journal of the American Medical Association indicate that approximately 50% of people with severe mental illness are influenced by drug addiction. 53% of drug abusers and 37% of alcohol abusers have been found to have at least one severe mental disorder. In addition, the report points out that 295 of all individuals diagnosed with mental illness either abuse drugs or alcohol (Hodder et al., 2016). Therefore, both of these statistical processes used to study the association between substance abuse and mental health disorder provide the best explanation and understanding.
Conclusion
It is evident that there is a significant association between substance abuse and mental health disorder. Studies have revealed that substance abuse triggers new symptoms of mental illness or worsens the symptoms of the disease. Consumption of addictive substances triggers the underlying symptoms of mental health disorders especially in individuals at risk of developing mental illness. Mental health illness leads to development of physiological, pathological, and epidemiological issues in the affected individual thus adversely affecting their functioning. Mental health plays a significant role in the economy of a nation. This means that mental health disorder impact on the well-being of an individual and their productivity to society, thus hindering economic growth. Mental health maintenance has been impacted also by the economic issues involved such as resources scarcity and ineffective financial mechanisms that hinder prevention and improvement of mental health among individuals struggling with substance addiction. Therefore, the mental health challenge can be addressed through application of the economic behavioral theory that offers appropriate activities to prevent substance abuse thereby improving mental health of these individuals.
References
Baskin‐Sommers, A. R., & Hearon, B. A. (2015). The Intersection between Neurobiological and Psychological Theories of Substance Use Disorders. The Handbook of Drugs and Society , 218.
Correia, C. J., Murphy, J. G., Irons, J. G., & Vasi, A. E. (2010). The behavioral economics of substance use: Research on the relationship between substance use and alternative reinforcers. Journal of Behavioral Health and Medicine, 1 (3), 216-237. Retrieved from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0100553
Hodder, L. C., Merritt, M. D., Schmidt, M. H., Botchman, J., Ebert, C., Corvini, M., ... & Drake, B. (2016). Resource Guide for Addiction and Mental Health Care Consumers: Answering Questions about Insurance Coverage and Parity for Addiction and Mental Health Care Services.
