Written By Kami Ann Davis 🌹🍃
We have GOT to STOP condemning people for having addiction issues. It’s STIGMATIZING. The label ‘addict’ is inaccurate and one hundred thousand percent INCORRECT, anyway. To say someone is an addict, what does that even mean? It means nothing positive, nor constructive.
It’s a label that instantly categorizes someone. In my strong opinion, it only makes the person’s condition worse by making them feel they are this ‘bad’ person, this addict. No. It’s so inaccurate first of all because addiction and self-medicating is a behavior. It is a symptom of the real and actual underlying issue that is mental or emotional. Therefore, in my opinion it would be incorrect to say he or she is an addict, but instead they are possibly suffering from an anxiety disorder or depression or trauma, etc.
How wonderful it would be if this were actually taking place. I have a feeling that people would be more apt to listen and do the work that’s needed in order to heal issues that drove them in the first place.
The brain is an incredible organ. Many people believe that if someone is mentally ill or has issues that they are just doomed for all eternity. But, that’s not true. The brain can heal just like the rest of the body can. We cannot ignore it though. If you got a cut on your hand that was deep, would you ignore it? Of course, not. You would be sure to clean it first and then bandage it so it doesn’t become worse or infected or if it is deep enough, you’d be forced to get stitches, so it can heal and get BETTER.
The very same thing can happen in our brains. But, since this kind of wound is invisible, we tend to ignore ignore. Big mistake, and it’s why there are so many cases of manic depression, bipolar, etc. When we experience trauma, it’s like a wound to the head and our mind gets hurt. When left and ignored, the mind does its best to recover by either blocking it or slowly covering its wounds with scar tissue, so-to-speak.
Here is an article describing the dark side of college life. Again, the way they describe this particular student’s experience, it is beyond frustrating. It’s so INCREDIBLY frustrating to me because not ONCE do they point out that this student IS suffering from a mental health issue. Yet, they list at least five present and very clear symptoms of mental illness. Symptoms of someone having a mental illness are the following: <<<And YES ..I AM A TRAINED NURSE IN THE PSYCHIATRIC FIELD>>> I was trained extensively in mental illness, diagnoses, symptoms etc. Some of these symptoms are isolation, being withdrawn, not grooming or taking care of hygienic needs, not sleeping, or sleeping too much, ABUSING substances and the list goes on. But, it is baffling to me how these prestigious psychiatrists, so and so and the department of psychology label people as addicts or abusing alcohol and drugs, but don’t address any mental health issues. Yet, here they are psychiatrists listing actual symptoms of mental illness, one after the other. That doesn’t make any sense. They are ignoring their entire scope of practice and field to pass them off as addicts, then ship them off to a recovery center. Not saying that recovery centers are useless, but I believe that this process is ineffective thus, completely backwards. If someone is exhibiting out-of-control behavior with substances, they should be forced or pointed in the direction of psychotherapy and then maybe AA or NA or at the very least, in conjunction.
It is sad to me that in these times, they still do not recognize addiction as a SYMPTOM of the person’s mental state or current condition/disorder. It blows my mind how far behind society and medicine really are in the psychiatric field because to this day, doctors and psychologists are STILL diagnosing people with co-occurring disorders and having a dual diagnosis if the person is abusing drugs or alcohol. Inpatient psych treatment etc, they will go on to say how extremely difficult it is because they have a dual diagnosis. Really?? I mean, I know I am highly intelligent but I cannot be the only one. Come ON. APPARENTLY, it does NOT take a Ph.D to figure out that abusing substances is a form of self-medicating. Or maybe it’s because they simply do not care about people getting better.
The article/excerpt begins here ~
“They don’t take care of themselves in terms of showering and basic hygienic needs. You’ll see athletic performance drop, you’ll see academic performance drop and you’ll see attendance drop. They may have to move out of their apartment or out of the dorm, which means that they have another problem being compounded. Now we have somebody who is homeless. They’re not eating anymore, and they’re not eating because they’d rather do the substance rather than eat. They disassociate from some of their friends. They’re very easy to anger,” Knox said.’
An addict or alcoholic is not just someone who drinks and does drugs every day. For some, it may mean binge drinking and using on the weekends or every once in a while. The key factor is the obsession and compulsion to drink and use.’
https://thewichitan.com/69212/news/the-darker-side-of-college-life-substance-abuse/
The following is an article of a prison inmate who died of withdrawals and dehydration. If only she could of known about Kratom she may of been able to choose a different path for herself.
“She was detoxing in jail and I guess they thought the whole idea was that she was just detoxing for the time she was in there,” Allyson Carlin said.’
‘OGDEN — BreaAnn Carlin steadily lost weight during her nine-day stay in the Weber County Jail. At the end, she was dead, collapsed after crawling from a medical observation cell toward her scheduled shower.
Carlin was “gaunt, cheeks sunken, appeared to have aged tremendously,” a sheriff’s detective described in a report, having viewed the 26-year-old Plain City woman’s body in the initial moments of the death investigation.
“She looked nothing like her initial booking photo,” the detective said in his Weber County Sheriff’s Office investigative report.’
Final Thoughts: There are various degrees and different illnesses of the mind. Yes, absolutely ..I believe that a person could have a dual diagnosis involving addiction and mental illness. Some folks are extremely mentally ill, for example having schizophrenia or SEVERE psychosis from a YOUNG age that many times will drive them to abuse drugs or alcohol. HOWEVER, for the majority of Americans who are NOT severely mentally ill or insane from a very early age, I believe and have seen with my own eyes, that their addiction is a symptom of what is underlying, also. To clarify, I believe that addiction doesn’t have to be an entire diagnoses of its own. It does depend on the person and their genetic makeup, their pre-disposition, along with key hereditary factors to determine whether or not it would be considered organic and a disease of its own. But, I think for a lot of folks addiction and abuse are simply the behavior forming as a result of a mental, emotional, or physical condition; having a very high success rate of being resolved with the right kind of attention and therapy.
BECAUSE, by NO means are we a symptom or an illness. We are not symptoms. We are not illness. We are human beings who have thoughts, symptoms, and experiences.
Written By Kami Ann Davis 🌹🍃
Southeast Beautiful Kratom Education 
This makes me simultaneously angry and disgusted. Not your article, the fact that yet another person was not told about kratom, by anyone, mind you, and so had no idea it might have worked for her. Every time I see an article like this, I can’t help flashing back to, what if that had been me. The FDA has lost all credibility. They claim that the science makes kratom a narcotic, and when they get denied their victory, they whine and complain. They’re supposed to be doctors, and scientists, and not have feelings one way or the other towards any substance. But this is clearly money motivated, with a dash of plant hate thrown in. I’ve literally heard of FDA employees calling kratom advocates all kinds of stuff, and refusing to acknowledge that their drugs are dangerous, if not deadly. Every single drug approved by them has the potential to cause harm, it’s just a matter of how much harm. They’re not all fatal, but they are not even close to being safe. If I’d listen to my own doctor, I’d never have tried this leaf and I’d still be a tramadol addict today. This is unacceptible
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