Addiction and Schizophrenia in an American Family, Part 6 of 9

 ADDICTION AND SCHIZOPHRENIA IN AN AMERICAN FAMILY, Part 6 of 9

            (Adapted from “A NEW AMERICAN FAMILY: A Love Story,”      

             Published by University of Arizona Press, 2011.)                

Part 6    

     Because schizophrenia is medically treatable and drug addiction currently is not only not treatable but also essentially illegal, parents might prefer schizophrenia to drug addiction in their children. On the other hand, schizophrenia is presently incurable and drug addiction offers the hope of sustained recovery, however unpredictably.  Which curse should parents prefer for their children?  The only certain answer is that either is preferable to both together.

     For the patient, however, the preference is clear.  John felt the stigma of a recognized mental illness more acutely than he felt the societal disapproval of his drug abuse.  He had a hard time accepting his drug addiction as a permanent condition, but that was much easier for him than admitting that he was “crazy” and would always be so.

     John described in detail the side effects of his medication, sometimes in lament and sometimes in good humor.  He asked if we remembered the way the patients walked in the movie “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”  “That’s called the Haldol shuffle” by the psychiatric patients in the hospital John told us, conveying not only a vivid illustration of this side effect of that drug but revealing also a remarkable degree of self-awareness by the patients.

     The dual-diagnosis patient is constantly dealing with a Catch-22; the solution to his schizophrenia is to use mind-altering drugs, and this is precisely what he must avoid as a drug addict.  His best prospect for help with schizophrenia is his psychiatrist, but the doctor is of little or no value in dealing with his addiction.  His best friend in dealing with addiction is the recovering addict, but the men in a tough rehab like Hogar Crea absolutely forbid the use of mind-altering drugs, even as medication.

     The schizophrenia diagnosis may have helped Pat and me as John’s parents to realize that his drug use was driven initially by his self-medication, but that realization did not alter the pattern of John’s drug use, which continued intermittently for fifteen years. As John explained to me during a lucid interval of proper medication and abstinence from street drugs, he was attracted to the forbidden drugs not by the desire to feel high but by the need to control pain.

(To be continued in subsequent blogs.)

Peter Likins