We Might Know More If Anyone Was Looking

I thought it might be useful to look at how illegal drug use/alcohol use/ “abuse” of prescription drugs correlates with PTSD. Here is what the Department Of Veterans Affairs has to say:

Anyone who has gone through a life-threatening event can develop PTSD. These events can include:

Combat or military exposure
Child sexual or physical abuse
Terrorist attacks
Sexual or physical assault
Serious accidents, such as a car wreck
Natural disasters, such as a fire, tornado, hurricane, flood, or earthquake

After the event, you may feel scared, confused, or angry. If these feelings don’t go away or they get worse, you may have PTSD. These symptoms may disrupt your life, making it hard to continue with your daily activities.

Some symptoms:

Drinking or drug problems
Feelings of hopelessness, shame, or despair
Employment problems
Relationships problems including divorce and violence
Physical symptoms

How about we look at the drug/alcohol PTSD nexus a little closer?

Self-medication may explain the high rates of substance use among people with PTSD. Those with PTSD also commonly use or abuse drugs and/or alcohol. Among people who have had PTSD, approximately 31% have also abused or been dependent on drugs at some point in their lifetime. Approximately 40% have also abused or been dependent on alcohol. The high rate of co-occurrence between PTSD and substance use has led researchers to try and better understand this relationship so that treatments can be targeted more effectively.

One major theory of the relationship between PTSD and substance use is that use of drugs or alcohol is motivated by desires to escape or alleviate the distressing symptoms of PTSD. Substance use problems have been found to be more likely to follow the development of PTSD, suggesting that there is something about having PTSD that may increase risk for substance use problems.

In addition, one study of cocaine users with PTSD found that the majority of people studied believed that their PTSD and substance use were related. Specifically, as PTSD symptoms got worse, people reported that their drug use increased as well. Conversely, as their PTSD symptoms got better, their drug use also decreased.

And most sites have this obligatory statement or something similar.

Substance use may initially result in a reduction in distress; however, in the long-run it can cause many serious problems. Substance use is a short-term fix. PTSD symptoms may come back even stronger, resulting in stronger desires to use substances. In addition, it has been found that people with PTSD and substance use problems are at increased risk for experiencing a number of negative consequences, such as depression, suicide attempts, interpersonal problems, legal problems, medical problems, and inpatient psychiatric hospitalization.

OK. Using black market drugs is bad for PTSD. Except when studies (suspiciously unmentioned) show the opposite. This Atlantic article has an interesting take on the question.

Studies have already shown the benefits of marijuana for those suffering from PTSD, but can our government agencies be convinced?

Probably not as long as there is so much money in the drug trade. For both the legal and illegal cartels. The Drug War does one useful thing for both of them. It eliminates competition.

The Israelis have a different view.

“In the case of people with PTSD, it could be a good solution to take marijuana, but we still don’t know the possible negative effects of the drug,” she cautions. “For PTSD sufferers, where their situation is terrible, something like marijuana has other effects – an effect on anxiety, and we are trying to pinpoint brain areas that are involved.”

But more than providing anxiety relief, cannabinoids could affect emotional memory and enhance PTSD treatments by modulating the emotional memory component, she argues. Akirav believes that in pill or drug form they could be used in combination with exposure therapy to stymie the effect of a trauma. And since cannabinoids are already widely used and in some cases prescribed as cancer therapies, they could potentially pass through regulatory hurdles quickly as a drug to treat PTSD.

Of course when he says “prescribed” he means Israel. In America the most a doctor can do re: cannabis is recommend.

And now for the kicker that has my jaw torqued. From a site about PTSD.

Despite knowing for sometime now that PTSD and drug and alcohol use problems co-occur quite regularly, research examining the reasons why this is the case is still in its earliest stages.

For some time? If you look closely, the recorded evidence goes back at least to the American Civil War. And for no less that 20 or 30 years since the term PTSD became common.

Here is another one from the The National Center For PTSD that describes the paucity of research.(SUD = Substance Use Disorder)

While the literature on associations between PTSD and SUD is well established, very few randomized control trials (RCTs) of treatments targeting PTSD/SUD are available.

And God forbid they even mention the self medication hypothesis until the research is in. That might mean that taking drugs may be the best some people can do. It may not be a disorder at all.

So what is holding back this kind of research in America? What happens to the Drug War when we recognize that at least 30% of chronic drug users are using drugs in response to trauma? In the case of female heroin users it could be 70% or higher.

Making war on the traumatized is going to be a hard sell in a Christian country. The question is: “is America a Christian country?” Well, we hear a LOT of bleating to that effect. But if you judge by the Drug War the answer has to be NO. Punishing miscreants real or imagined seems to be more popular than salving the wounded. I know how it is – utopia requires a LOT of suffering. By others.