Blogs Reports

Mental Health and Addiction are Symptoms


Reported by Charlie

Published on Tuesday, February 21st, 2023

Mental Health Recovery Substance Use
Blogs Reports

Mental Health and Addiction are Symptoms


Written by Charlie

Published on Tuesday, February 21st, 2023

Mental Health

Recovery

Substance Use

My major issue is not drugs, it’s mental health. Put it this way, my reality is just different from others but I see addiction and mental health issues as being indivisible. They are both symptoms of homelessness rather than direct causes of it.

For example how can OCD be mental health and addiction not, when a major driver in addiction is obsessive and compulsive behaviour. Addiction is so obviously a mental health issue when you consider the irrationality of continuing to use a substance despite the severe and obvious consequences of doing so.

I’ve got to be honest it does wind me up when I hear people with mental health issues dismissing addicts in that judgemental way. What is the difference between someone like me with mental health issues who put themselves through hell when I was in crisis and someone who tries to self-medicate that hell by using drugs.

It was such a fine line for me nearly falling into addiction but I somehow managed to fight it. It was about the only thing that I did fight at the time. Who knows why I didn’t but it has nothing to do with me being a good or bad person. One thing I know for sure is that the earlier people get help for their issues the less likely they are to fall in to damaging behaviour.

Someone who is helped with the issues that end up causing that addiction, if they get that help soon enough. If they don’t get that help in a timely fashion they may end up developing serious mental health issues or developing addictions that are often just an expression of mental health issues or a response to some sort of trauma or another.

At the end of the day it is all about the cause. It not about whether it’s mental health, whether it’s drink or whether its gambling, it’s about what caused the issues in the first place – what was it at the start that made your mentality turn that way in the beginning?

Drugs are a symptom not the cause and it’s the same with mental health. Mental health is not a cause it is a symptom. What causes those problems with your mental health in the beginning? That’s what we need to know and that is what we need to deal with if we have any chance of making recovery stick. 

Written by Charlie


Charlie Radbourne has more than six years, peer support and advocacy experience. Sitting on many service user forums and local authority committees. Due to mental health problems, coming under CMHT and the crisis team, Charlie spent eight months sleeping rough and in the local night shelter, then four years in a hostel / supported accommodation.

Read all of Charlie's articles

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Mental Health Recovery Substance Use

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