Nicky Lordson

The distinction between depression and substance use.

For medical and social uses, medicines have been used extensively. Many of these widely used medications are acetaminophen, caffeine, marijuana, and nicotine. Despite negative effects, addiction is the habitual use of drugs. Drug use can lead to abuse, but it doesn’t do so most of the times.

Even in the absence of addiction, substance use can lead to harm.

Alcohol consumption, for instance, is related to many forms of cancer. It can lead to addiction by mixing drugs such as Xanax and Vicodin. Particularly if the person consuming drugs is not suffering from an overdose, these harms will arise.

Another more clinically acceptable, way of describing an addiction is the word ‘substance use disorder’. Substance use disorders can be graded as mild, moderate, or extreme, as per DSM-5, which is the textbook used to classify mental health disorders.

People can and do recover.

Around 1 in 10 Americans say they have had a drug problem before (including alcohol). Many have received structured recovery programs or have been active with peer support networks (like 12-Step Fellowships). Others discovered numerous pathways to healing.

Recovery is widespread and routes are varying. Although there is a great deal more to discover about effective drug care, we know that some approaches are more successful than others. The use of agonist drugs such as methadone and buprenorphine, for example, decreases the mortality risk of persons with opioid addiction.

Better long-term results are promoted through peer reinforcement (like 12-step fellowships and Wise Recovery). It has been shown that such treatment approaches such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Persuasive Questioning, and Contingency Management help addiction rehabilitation.

The same goes with drug prevention: although we don’t know much, we do know that some methods are more successful than others. There are scientifically proven preventive initiatives, such as Supporting Families and Communities That Care, which have been researched and proven to be successful.

Measures that can help during Addiction Treatment

There are also measures that can help people understand and tackle their use of drugs. Most of them is SBIRT (Screening, Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment), which has been found to help primary care patients minimize their consumption of alcohol.

People with opioid use problems need high-quality treatment, but sadly, they undergo it too rarely. There are several reasons why depression is not efficiently treated and sufficiently assisted by treatment.

Mainstream healthcare, for example, has traditionally done very little to support addicted patients, a practice that persists to this day.

In comparison, alcohol rehabilitation has usually been provided at brief periods (e.g., inpatient rehab for 30 days when people also require longer-term care. The ties between mental health, social services, the criminal justice system, and providers of drug recovery have not been good enough which ensures that structured care is not provided to individuals with multiple needs.

United Recovery Project partners with services and schemes designed to successfully adapt to opioid use, including the prevention of addiction treatment and healthcare. We tailor consultancy services to the individual specifications of our customer.

We spend time understanding your system and issues. We look at details, communicate with employees and partners, perform focus groups, and monitor patient experiences. From there, we formulate a roadmap for transformation that suits the results our consumers expect to achieve.