Homeless people/addiction.

[domalino]

Been around alcoholics and mental
Illness my whole life. They’re not the same thing, but one can destroy your life as easily as the other. Conflation of the two is a problem that needs separating and fixing.

Anyone who's been around mental illness and alcoholics their entire life would know that addiction is a mental illness?

And would understand that this man turned to alcohol to treat his depression (a mental illness).

You can't conflate alcoholism and mental illness, they're the same thing.

 

[give it to gordon]

A story about NHS underfunding leading to awful standards of mental healthcare.


Which is also probably why the yank doesn't understand it, America demonises their homeless people in a way I've not seen or exerienced in any other country.

Yep yet we nothing about the poor human rights in America. Slightly of topic

 

[ChicagoBlue]

Anyone who's been around mental illness and alcoholics their entire life would know that addiction is a mental illness?

And would understand that this man turned to alcohol to treat his depression (a mental illness).

You can't conflate alcoholism and mental illness, they're the same thing.

They are not the same thing. One is a very, very broad term, while the other may represent a sliver of the other, but even that is suspect in some areas.

So, what you are saying is he ALWAYS had depression, which manifested itself through alcohol and then alcoholism, after his marriage broke up, thus he was mentally ill?

To that, I say “cobblers!”

Rather, If say he was weak and succumbed to drowning his sorrows rather than facing the adult reality in front of him. He did it to such an extent he became addicted and it ruined his life.

I see no mental illness in taking an addictive and depressive substance until you’re an addicted depressive. It’s a cop out.

 

[domalino]

So, what you are saying is he ALWAYS had depression, which manifested itself through alcohol and then alcoholism, after his marriage broke up, thus he was mentally ill?

That's not anyone's definition of mental illness.

It doesn't have to be permanent to be mental illness. Depression can be permanent, reoccuring or a one off brought about by specific events. It's still a mental illness.

Addiction and other Substand use disorders are recognised by just about every medical association in the world as mental illnesses.

Not only that, but people with depression are 2x more likely to develop a substance use disorder than an otherwise healthy person.

This man needed proper mental healthcare when he became depressed. If he'd gotten it he'd still be alive.

 

[ChicagoBlue]

A story about NHS underfunding leading to awful standards of mental healthcare.


Which is also probably why the yank doesn't understand it, America demonises their homeless people in a way I've not seen or exerienced in any other country.

I see that YET AGAIN, the MANC who lives and works in YANK is the poster child for the ills of the 330,000,000 people he supposedly represents.

The laziness in the narrative not only speaks for itself, but informs the rest of what you have to say.

 

[ChicagoBlue]

That's not anyone's definition of mental illness.

It doesn't have to be permanent to be mental illness. Depression can be permanent, reoccuring or a one off brought about by specific events. It's still a mental illness.

As described, it’s self-inflicted wound conveniently lumped into a MASSIVE, AND GROWING, group of illnesses.

DSM-5 definition of mental disorder:

A mental disorder is a syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbance in an individual's cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or development processes underlying mental functioning


The W.H.O. definition:

A mental disorder is characterized by a clinically significant disturbance in an individual's cognition, emotional regulation, or behaviour. It is usually associated with distress or impairment in important areas of functioning.


If pining for a leg over and drowning your sorrows is the threshold, then we will all be out on Disability and they’ll be no-one left to pay the bennies!

 

[youngbob]

“Get a grip” and “show some backbone” were responses to the story that a man split from his wife and turned to the bottom of a pint pot every night. THAT was when his life went downhill!

This is the part of your post that shows your misunderstanding of the situation at hand. You can choose to be sympathetic or you can choose to tell this (now dead) person to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, that's up to you, but you at least have to understand what you're responding to first.

Your sentiment appears to be "He turned to alcohol, that was when his life went downhill", which is fair enough. But you speak as though this person was only ever going to turn to alcohol and had a level of rational control over his circumstances. The point is that it just happened to be alcohol that filled the hole. The problem for this bloke wasn't the alcohol, the problem was the hole. If it wasn't alcohol then it would have been something else. Smoking, gambling, drugs, etc. The hole is loneliness, shame, a lack of purpose. Without purpose, without something to call their own and maintain, human beings turn to destructive vices.

This poor bloke, whoever he was, was dead the moment he ended up lonely. Loneliness is the hole, loneliness is the killer. It's great for you that you clearly don't have such a hole in your life but when there's fuck all to live for and nothing to ease the pain, you do whatever you can to get out of your own head for a while.

 

[Corky]

Why is having mental health problems and a substance misuse problems terms professionally as dual diagnosis if they are the same thing?

Or as the MH team would say, they don't it isn't MH, just PD and pissheads in a lot of cases.

 

[domalino]

As described, it’s self-inflicted wound conveniently lumped into a MASSIVE, AND GROWING, group of illnesses.

It's not self inflicted anymore than someone resorting to self treating any illness could inflict on themselves some other damage. Left without medical services to treat an open wound, plenty of people would end up with infections.

This man was left alone to treat one illness and ended up making things worse.

Also, what's the point of "MASSIVE AND GROWING"?

You seem to be surprised that as our understanding of mental health improves, we're more able to diagnose illnesses?

Would you be surprised to know that our list of cancers and autoimmune diseases are also "MASSIVE AND GROWING"?

 

[ChicagoBlue]

Yep yet we nothing about the poor human rights in America. Slightly of topic

Or grammar, if we understand what you just said! :/)