Eleven years ago, two days before Christmas, my 24-year-old brother, who was a university graduate and former law student, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. After a decade of hard and continuous drinking interspersed with addiction and mental health treatment, he could not sustain his recovery. His suicide came on the heels of my mother’s death a year before, and just weeks later, my grandfather died in a car accident. My family’s holidays would never be the same.

Like so many others who survived the loss of someone dear from the chaos of severe substance use disorder (SUD), I am too familiar with unspeakable grief. But I have found meaning through it and purpose in passing that on.

I was a medical resident when I dropped my brother off at an addiction treatment facility for the first time. Later, I became an addiction specialist physician, focusing on treating people with SUD and helping them manage their disease and find remission and recovery. My work has taught me something important: To help stop the addiction crisis that has brought so much sorrow to families like mine, policymakers must prioritize prevention at all levels and support evidence-based prevention initiatives — including raising federal excise taxes on alcohol.

  • FiveMacs@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Alcohol isn’t self medication though…it’s a coping mechanism and furthers depression. But yes, this section. Also caught my eye while skimming

    • hungrycat@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I get what you’re saying and don’t disagree with your distinction. But it bears pointing out that it feels like splitting hairs to say self-medication and coping mechanisms aren’t the same when you’re the individual in pain.

      • Granixo@feddit.cl
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        1 year ago

        In this case it isn’t because no doctor would ever suggest drowning your pain in the booze.

        • hungrycat@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Self-medication as a term does not rely on what a healthcare professional would or would not prescribe you. It’s simply a behavior where a human self-administers any substance to treat a condition. Sometimes those substances would be recommended in certain cultures and not in others. Sometimes substances are recommended with limitations (e.g. a glass of red wine a day). But the point is that self-medicating not only doesn’t require a doctor’s note, it is often viewed as a response of asserting independence from established medicine.

        • ChexMax@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I don’t know. Doctors prescribe Xanax all the time. Xanax and alcohol are both depressants. So Doctors do suggest drowning your pain in depressant drugs.

          Doctors also prescribe antidepressants, a side effect of which is suicide and suicidal ideation. It’s not like doctors only prescribe fruits, veg, and exercise.

        • Bizarroland@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Yeah but the Bible does so using alcohol as an emotional pain management medicine predates the origin of modern doctors Hippocratic oath by a few thousand years.

    • Chetzemoka@startrek.website
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      1 year ago

      “Self-medication” is a synonym for maladjusted coping mechanisms. It’s a euphemism. They used the term correctly.