RESEARCH PAPER

Research Paper and the Annotated Bibliography

Research Paper and the Annotated Bibliography

Thesis Statement

The report is a research on demonstrating that the treatment of alcohol and drug addiction must include the treatment of mental disorders because of the co-occurrences of these problems. In other words, it is not possible to treat alcohol and drug addiction without also treating the mental problems of this population of people.

Introduction

The VA Medical Center of Minneapolis completed a study of the success rate of treatment for alcoholism. The results were interesting because they included the rate of success of giving up cigarette smoking along with alcohol. There were 462 subjects included in the study. All the subjects received intensive alcohol and smoking cessation treatment. One year later all the subjects were studied to determine how many had remained free of cigarette smoking and alcohol usage. A major variable that was studies was the impact of depression on the ability to remain free of alcohol and cigarettes. The results of the study showed that smoking cessation was not affected by depression, whether mild, moderate or severe in nature. However, the same could not be said for the relationship between depression and alcoholism. Those subjects with mild, moderate and severe levels of depression had more difficulty remaining free of alcohol use six and twelve months after treatment. (Zimmerman, 1999, 116)

Research Paper and the Annotated Bibliography

While the researchers admitted that more studies were needed on the alcoholism and depression they concluded that treatment for alcoholism cannot have long term success unless depression is also treated. In other words, treating depression may increase the chances of successful outcome in the recovery from alcoholism.

At the present time some alcohol treatment programs treat depression while others do not. It is likely that all programs will need to address the problem of depression in order to maximize the chances of recovery from alcohol abuse.

There is an increased comorbidity, or co-occurrence, of substance dependence in individuals who have mental illness as compared to individuals without any mental disorder. This indicates either a shared neurobiological basis for both, or an interaction of effects at some level. Research on the origins of both mental illnesses and substance dependence will help to shed light on treatment and prevention strategies for both. There are several hypotheses as to why mental illness and substance dependence may co-occur:

1. There may be a similar neurobiological basis to both;

2. Substance use may help to alleviate some of the symptoms of the mental illness or the side effects of medication;

3. Substance use may precipitate mental illnesses or lead to biological changes that have common elements with mental illnesses.

There is some evidence for all of these hypotheses. It is interesting that the effects of many psychoactive substances can produce psychiatric-like syndromes. For example, amphetamines and cocaine can induce psychotic-like symptoms. Hallucinogenic substances can produce hallucinations, which are an aspect of some psychoses. Furthermore, psychoactive substances regularly alter mood states, (Zimmerman, 1999, 116) producing eithereuphoric and happy feelings, or inducing depressive symptoms, ...