Problematic Substance Misuse and Mental Health

Problematic Substance Misuse and Mental Health
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Problematic Substance Misuse and Mental Health
Introduction
Recurrent substance abuse in society has been a prevalent issue for decades. It is seemingly impossible to eradicate since the users tend to fall back to their drug abuse ways as much as they receive assistance. Elements such as clinically substantial deficits in health, societal functionality, and physical and psychological control over drug and alcohol use mark a substance use disorder (Tkach, 2018). Mental health is a withdrawal effect of substance abuse, which perpetually exists in society as the users are in a psychological battle with the implications of halting their usage. Although most treatments have taken place in specialized drug abuse treatment facilities with little participation from primary health care, change is taking place toward delivering treatment services for regular users. Guerrero and Khachikian (2020) indicate that normalized therapy within the standard health care system might be enough for people with mild to moderate drug use disorders. The essay aims to discuss how trauma-informed care can be adopted to treat and manage substance abuse disorders. Trauma-induced treatment is a set of procedures that translates the science of cognitive, emotional, and psychological knowledge of how trauma arises in neurological systems and how evidence-based therapeutic practice can be applied for treating trauma symptoms. Such methods do not target to treat the trauma but aid in managing symptoms and reducing the patient’s risk of reverting to trauma in the care process. Thus, trauma-informed approaches increase the probability of improving outcomes for people with co-occurring substance use and mental health disorders.
Background
The youth are the most affected by substance abuse and imbalanced mental health. Statistics indicate that 20.8 million people between 12 and 23 years recorded a substance abuse disorder in 2015 (Guerrero & Khachikian, 2020). Such numbers are worrying since those figures are an increasing trend from previous years. Regarding health inequalities, the youths have a higher rate of substance abuse disorder due to prevalent exposure to drugs. At the same time, they face difficulty receiving mental health care due to poor access to financial income. Moreover, youths have low access to insurance services that cover mental health ailments. In this context, mental health nursing is crucial because it assists in examining and evaluating the client’s mental health, preparing a care plan, and consultative approach with other health practitioners regarding the treatment and care plan. It also assists in providing care and psychological treatment, maintaining medical records, and providing support and information to patients and their families (Gabrielson et al., 2020). Mental health and substance abuse disorders are bonded together through a clear lens since substance abuse leads to mental health, while some mental health issues, such as PTSD, lead to drug abuse.
Trauma has been highlighted as a root cause of mental health and drug abuse problems among youths. Conservative e...