Beyond the Quick Fix: Addressing the Causes of Self-Medication

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Good afternoon

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and welcome to Mind Pilot, This is Dr. Jana Price-Sharps

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today, we're gonna talk about self medication

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and that may seem like kind of an odd topic,

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but it's something that a lot of people do and

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they do it with a lot of different strategies.

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So we're going to talk about what leads to wanting self medication.

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And then we're going to talk about

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the different kinds of self medication. Then we're going to talk about

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hmm, what's good self medication and what's going to make you feel worse. So,

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you know, a lot of times people get stressed and they don't take care of the stress.

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It's kind of like that old adage that said a stitch in time saves nine.

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What does that mean?

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It means that if you have a tear in something, go ahead and stitch it up,

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Wait instead of waiting until it's completely torn.

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Well, the same thing can be said about mental health

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if you have a restless night or you

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have some anxiety yesterday then instead of running from it and going, oh my God,

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I don't want to think about it.

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And I wanted to go away and I wanted to shut it off instead of doing that,

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Take a step back and say, okay,

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what can I do about this?

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Is there an underlying problem that I need to resolve or am I getting sick

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or did I not get enough sleep or did I drink too much coffee, which is a common one?

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Uh you know,

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or did I drink three energy drinks or what

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is going on with me That that happened yesterday

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and instead of waiting three years,

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so you're now having panic attacks and not going to work and not going to

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a grocery store because you had a panic attack there last week

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and now you don't want to drive instead of waiting

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as soon as something happens with your mind and you're feeling uncomfortable,

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your mind is talking to you,

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you see when you have a hurt knee,

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your knee is going to tell you there's a problem through pain sensations, right?

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You're going to know that your knee is hurt because if you put pressure on it,

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you're going to be saying, ouch, oh, ouch that hurt.

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Oh right. How do we know when our brain is hurting? Well, our brain knocks,

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it's like, hello, there is a problem

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and you go, go away, shut up, shut up, shut up.

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And then it gives you a little jolt of anxiety and it's still going, hello, excuse me,

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there is a problem here and you go, shut up, shut up, shut up.

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And then it's like, okay,

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hello, there is a problem here and boom, you have the first panic attack

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your brain is trying to tell you something, what is it trying to tell you?

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I don't know,

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but if you'll stop and start thinking about it.

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I bet you figure out what it is.

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So often people come in and they want to peel, you know, they'll like,

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I need medication for anxiety.

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Well, okay, there are some people maybe initially they need anxiety meds,

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but really what they probably need is to fix the problem

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because most of the time anxiety is coming from a cause, what is causing it?

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Is it because you're too behind in work and you need to figure a strategy to catch up.

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Is it because you're having relationship problems with your spouse?

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Is it because you're concerned about your 16 year old,

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is it because you're afraid you have a health problem and you

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don't want to go get it addressed what is going on?

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Don't avoid, it

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figure out a plan to fix it because then

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the need for self medication goes away.

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So many people over the last 25 years of my career have come in and they've been

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using some kind of self medication that is causing more problems

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than it's helping.

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But it's because they're running from something or they're avoiding something.

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And

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the problem is that self medication is making it worse. So, again, a stitch in time,

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jeez, a stitch in time saves nine.

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Make sure you remember that one because take immediate action.

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You're going to have a lot less problems.

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But let's say you didn't take immediate action

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and you're sitting on your couch

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and you're thinking about everything that's weighing you down.

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You're thinking about your relationships, your thinking about work,

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you're thinking about old calls, you're thinking about

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kids, you're thinking about finances

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And it gets too overwhelming because now your brain has gone down.

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I don't know, 5, 10, 15 different, very dark rabbit holes are hard to get out of.

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You feel absolutely miserable. You don't know what to do with yourself.

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And now your spouse or significant other,

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a kid comes in and wants to talk and you

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don't want to talk because now you're really adrenalized.

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Right?

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And so you think, okay, I just, I just need something to shut my brain off.

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And so you reach for something, you reach for the pain pills or you reach for alcohol,

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you reach for marijuana or you reach for

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something that's going to take the pain away.

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The problem is, most things that are taking the pain away are numbing your brain,

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which means that when you sleep, you don't get normal sleep, you don't get rim sleep.

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And then you wake up feeling really tired the next morning,

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you didn't get the kind of sleep that you need for your brain to repair itself.

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Now you feel more agitated, more irritable and it's more difficult

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to deal with the problems that you already have.

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There's lots of different ways of self medicating.

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I named three, you know,

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substances are a big way that a lot of people try and self medicate.

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Some people self medicate with gambling.

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Some people self medicate with buying things.

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Some people self medicate with pornography. That's a real common one.

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And you know, the problem with pornography. And

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I know a lot of people enjoy pornography and use pornography.

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But I've seen the dark side of it where people no longer

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find their spouse sexually attractive because

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they're expecting their spouse to look like

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that person on the computer. That has been,

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you know, they've been airbrushed, right? They don't really look like that.

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They don't really smile like that.

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They really don't have body parts that look like that.

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They have been airbrushed and morphed and changed by a computer.

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And so now you start expecting your spouse to act like that.

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Not only that you start expecting your spouse

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or significant other

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to only pleasure you and you kind of

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forget about there's two people in that equation.

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I actually had a patient that was so bad that he had to hang a tv

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to be able to look at pornography when he was having sex with his significant other.

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And I've heard that many many times,

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they just have to turn on porn before they can get an

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erection to be able to have sex with their significant other?

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You know? So

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think about the self medication and is there a dark side to it.

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Is it causing you more problems?

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Is it causing you more anxiety? Is it causing you more depression?

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Is it causing you additional financial issues? What is going on with it?

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How are you going to walk through this. Take action.

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Don't wait, don't go, I'll deal with this someday. I'll deal with it tomorrow.

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No deal with it today. Unless it's midnight, then go to sleep.

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But take that step back and think about what is one thing, just one thing

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that I can do today

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that is going to make my life a little bit better and

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they can then make a commitment to do that every day.

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Wake up and go, okay,

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what is one thing I'm going to do today that's

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gonna get me closer to having a good life.

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Don't reach for the self medication because it never works

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okay.

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Reach for

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the solution. Reach for what am I going to do to ultimately solve this problem.

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There's very few problems in life that can't be resolved

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every once in a while, you'll get one.

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But unless you have one of those,

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take that step back and figure out how to resolve your problems.

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Stay away from the self medication. I have found that a lot of people

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I think that they may need drug and alcohol treatment

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when the reality is what they need to do is

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they need to get the pressure off of their lives

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and so please don't take that the wrong way.

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There are people that are addicted to drugs and addicted to alcohol.

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I work drug and alcohol treatment for many, many years. So I'm very aware of it.

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But there's other people that they're not addicted.

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They're using it as self medication?

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And so that means you need to figure out the solution to the real problem.

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Get it fixed one step at a time each day,

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do one thing that gets you a little closer to resolution.

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I hope you take action.

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I hope you

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take a chance on yourself and decide to have a good life.

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You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be healthy. You deserve to have a great life.

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Thank you so much for joining mind pilot this is Dr. Jana

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Price-Sharps have a wonderful day.