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Using drugs and alcohol changes the brain chemistry and makes you ‘feel different’.
They can make you feel happy, angry, sad, depressed, aggressive, anxious, irritable,
paranoid, ‘king of the world’, ‘nothing can touch me’ or ‘don’t care’.
Drugs and alcohol also change the way you think. Making decisions is harder,
recognising danger and risky situations is more difficult and the line between what
is real and what is not becomes very blurred.
What do we mean by…?
Depression
You don’t enjoy doing your ‘favourite’ things any more. You feel sad and have no energy.
You no longer care about how you look. You neglect your personal hygiene. Your concentration
is very poor. Your sleep pattern is disrupted – either want to sleep all the time or find
it very difficult to fall asleep. Perhaps you wake early in the morning and can’t get back
to sleep again. Your appetite is poor or you find yourself binge-eating. You cut yourself
off from your friends and family and feel very alone. You stop going out. You can’t see
things getting any better. No matter what you do, you just can’t shake it off. You can
feel irritable and ‘snap’ at those around you. This has been going on for weeks, at least.
Paranoia
You believe people are out to get you but there is no evidence to back this up. This belief
can be so strong that it stops you leaving the house because it is too frightening. You might
believe people are talking about you or are laughing at you or planning to hurt you. You feel
you cannot trust anyone.
Psychosis Hallucinations
Seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling or tasting things that are not really there.
Delusions
False, fixed beliefs which are not based in reality e.g. paranoia. You might believe that the
words of a song are about you directly or that a news story is about you.
Reality detachment
You are not able to accept the truth about what is really happening, despite being presented with solid evidence.
An example of a psychotic illness is schizophrenia.
Did you know…?
Drug and alcohol use can leave you with severe depression, paranoia and even psychosis.
If there is a history of mental illness in your family, you are more at risk of developing a mental illness and this risk is increased by using drugs or alcohol.
Treatment and support is available to help you through specialist young people’s services.
Contacts…
Your own GP
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS)
0800 77 66 00
SOURCE
0118 901 5666
Websites…
www.talktofrank.com
visit site
www.mentalhealth.org.uk
visit
site
www.youngminds.org.uk
visit site
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