Why People Self-Medicate and How To Stop

Life can be full of challenges, situations, feelings, and circumstances we want to ignore, diminish, or escape from. But how we deal with those events and feelings can be the difference between substance abuse and healthy wellbeing. Drinking, smoking marijuana, or using prescription medication may be socially acceptable responses to life stress, but as 'normal' as these responses may seem, using substances to try to make ourselves feel better — even for a short period of time — isn't healthy. It's self-medication, a harmful behavior pattern that can lead to addiction and emotional, social, interpersonal, and physical issues.

What Is Self-Medication?

Self-medication is exactly what the term sounds like: trying to treat our challenges by indulging in things that can temporarily help us feel better when we're experiencing a challenging situation. Most people self-medicate by indulging in one or a combination of the following:

• Legal substances such as food, alcohol, nicotine, or caffeine
• Controlled substances such as prescription medications like opioids
• Illegal substances such as methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, or ecstasy

Here at Soba Recovery, we define self-medication as using drugs or alcohol to manage a difficult situation. Many people turn to self-medication because they feel powerless or don't know how to cope with the challenge they're facing. Even though the situations and events that trigger self-medication can vary from person to person, most people self-medicate because they're experiencing some type of physical, emotional, or psychological pain.

Reasons For Self-Medication

Feeling down, worried, and out of sorts is a natural response to life's struggles and setbacks. But when these feelings start to interfere with their daily lives, people might feel tempted to cope with the distress on their own. Unfortunately, this often looks like reaching for an alcoholic drink, popping a pill, or smoking or snorting an illegal substance.

Numb Uncomfortable Feelings

Uncomfortable feelings are a part of life, but living with guilt, loneliness, sadness, fear, and hopelessness can be extremely frustrating. Dealing with unresolved trauma and emotional, verbal, or sexual abuse can also evoke uncomfortable and distressing feelings. Oftentimes, these emotions can feel overwhelming and impossible to endure, making people want to numb the pain. When individuals feel this way, they might find themselves trying to drink their discomfort away or take prescription painkillers to desensitize their feelings. Unfortunately, self-medicating with addictive substances can only temporarily numb uncomfortable feelings.

Experience Temporary Relief From Stress and Struggle

People also feel tempted to self-medicate when they're looking to escape day-to-day struggles. Family problems, challenges at work, parenting woes, and financial and legal problems can make most individuals want to escape the stresses of daily life. But most people can't simply pack a bag and leave their families, jobs, home, and town. So they turn to addictive substances as a temporary reprieve from their situation.

Often, self-medication starts with one drink, one pill, one hit, or one dose. For a brief moment, the struggle and stress seem to fade. That's because drugs and alcohol release dopamine, a 'feel good' chemical that produces a short-lived 'high' that replaces the stress they were once experiencing. Left uncontrolled, this expectation can create a cycle of substance abuse and plant the seeds of addiction.

Cope With Mental Health Challenges

Many people living with mental health challenges deal with debilitating and distressing emotions on a daily basis. In some cases, they may even feel like they live in an inescapable cycle of depression or anxiety. Overwhelmed with symptoms such as night terrors, hallucinations, paranoia, traumatizing flashbacks, unwanted thoughts, delusions, restlessness, discontent, hopelessness, insomnia, and fear, these individuals often try to 'treat' their condition with substances. Unfortunately, alcohol and drugs tend to exacerbate mental health symptoms, causing individuals to feel worse than they did in the first place.

Even though any kind of mental health challenge can lead to self-medication, individuals living with the following mental health conditions can be especially vulnerable:

• Bipolar disorder
• Anxiety disorders
• Schizophrenia
• Borderline personality disorder
• Major depressive disorder
• Seasonal affective disorder
• Obsessive compulsive disorder
• Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
• Posttraumatic stress disorder, or PTSD

Signs of Self-Medication

Even though many people self-medicate, the habit isn't always easy to identify. More often than not, self-medication can look and feel like ordinary life. After all, drinking alcohol is a socially acceptable aspect of American culture, many people take prescription medication, and several states have legalized marijuana. Motivation, however, remains one of the clearest ways to identify self-medicating habits.

Signs of self-medication can vary, but people may be using alcohol or drugs as a way of coping with difficulties if they:

• Turn to substances when they feel anxious, stressed, or depressed
• Experienced a triggering event and have increased their alcohol use or started using drugs
• Feel worse after drinking or getting high
• Worry when they can't get drunk or high
• Notice their problems keep multiplying
• Need to self-medicate more frequently to gain relief

Dangers of Self-Medication

Self-medicating can and often does create a range of problems. In addition to increasing the risk of addiction, self-medication can:

• Make symptoms worse. Using drugs and alcohol can cause physical, emotional, social, financial, and legal problems.
• Trigger new mental health challenges. People who self-medicate to deal with anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia are already vulnerable to mental health issues.
• Interfere with prescription medication, which can lead to unpleasant side effects.
• Prevent individuals from seeking and getting the help they need.

How To Stop Self-Medicating

Whether individuals are drinking, using drugs, or both, they won't stop self-medicating until they admit they do, in fact, use substances to manage difficult moments. They need to be honest with themselves and with those closest to them. When they are, they can start replacing self-medicating habits with healthy coping strategies.

There are several ways to stop self-medicating, but some of the most common strategies include:

• Therapy. Therapy can help change individuals' inaccurate views and thoughts about substances. According to cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, changed thoughts can lead to changed behavior.
• Outpatient treatment. Enrolling in a professional outpatient program can help individuals overcome substance abuse, mental health, and emotional challenges while living at home.
• Inpatient Treatment. Professional inpatient treatment can also help individuals overcome substance abuse, mental health, and emotional challenges. These programs require individuals to live onsite at the facility while they recover.
• Peer support groups. Most people struggling with self-medication feel alone and powerless. Peer support groups can surround them with people who have successfully overcome similar life challenges.
• Learn new coping strategies such as taking a walk, exercise and yoga, deep breathing, journaling, meditation and mindfulness, or asking a friend or family member for support.

Say Goodbye to Self-Medication

Self-medicating occurs when we use drugs or alcohol to temporarily deal with life challenges and difficulties. It's a dangerous, destructive habit that often leads to addiction. Luckily, individuals can learn to stop self-medicating by realizing their own self-medicating habits, changing their beliefs and thoughts about substances and self-medication, finding healthier ways to cope such as therapy, meditation, exercise, or journaling, and enrolling in a professional addiction and mental health treatment program.

SOBA Recovery Can Help

At SOBA Recovery, we understand the complex relationship between self-medication and addiction. Our team of compassionate professionals is here to help you break the cycle of self-medication and develop healthy coping strategies. We offer individualized treatment plans tailored to your unique needs, including therapy, peer support, and comprehensive addiction treatment.

If you or a loved one is struggling with self-medication, don't wait to get help. Contact SOBA Recovery today to learn more about our programs and take the first step toward a healthier, substance-free life.