- Hi, I'm Brianna Mondello.
- I'm Charlie Smartinas, and I'm Abigail Tomintone.
“- And today we're talking about the effects”
of illegal drugs with PTSD suffers. - And today's January 7th, 2021. - Just a little background on PTSD. In 1980, the American Psychiatric Association
added PTSD to the third edition of its diagnostic
and statistical manual of mental disorders, which basically means that's when it officially became, like a disorder. And that was from the National Center for PTSD. - So the PTSD definition is the disorder
in which a person has difficulty recovering after experiencing or witnessing a terrifying event. And everyone has different triggers and each person who has PTSD has it for varying lengths of time.
It can be just months or it can be multiple years. At first, it wasn't called PTSD. It was called Shao Shao.
“And they treated it with either anesthesia”
or electrical therapy depending on the doctor's choice.
And it just kind of numged your emotions and they do num to the world. And it's not very different from the medications that we used today. Well, it is not electrical therapy to the brain,
but it's like they have the same effects on the person from numbing the emotions. So we're going to look into why most PTSD sufferers have been looking into illegal substances in order to treat their PTSD.
So on average, this is about, or like from 22, like in a day, 22 veterans suffer from PTSD commit suicide. And one of the 11 people will be diagnosed
with PTSD in their lifetime.
And the typical treatments for PTSD
“are things like sexual line and peroxatine”
which will just, they're overkind of drives and they suppress all feelings and walk all emotions. According to the American addiction centers, the reason that most veterans are such high risk
for addiction to these drugs is because of their exposure to trauma such as when they're deployed multiple times and exposed to combat. And like just seeing everyone die around them
or even if they're like veterans that have experienced sexual trauma, these can lead to the PTSD and other mental issues which can also lead them to find comfort in these illegal drugs.
So the drugs that are actually prescribed like electrolysis before. A lot of the people call them call the effects is on the effect. Because they give you such loss of connection
from the world and at numbing your emotions so much that they don't even feel like they're all people anymore. So prescribed drugs, cause people will turn to things like alcohol and cocaine
because the prescribed drugs don't work as well. They don't really have a huge effect on PTSD so the alcohol and cocaine provide relief and but it does cause it can cause addiction, so according to an article called Substance Abuse
memory and post traumatic stress disorder which is kind of like a... it's like an academic journal or something. It states that veterans with PTSD experience more severe alcohol and drug problems
than those without PTSD and the increase in use of alcohol when I listen to drugs and PTSD patients parallels the increase in number of PTSD symptoms. So these people you're suffering from
are turning to these druglessness alcohol to help them feel emotion but not necessarily block out their emotions. They drink the alcohol so that they can forget but then they actually worsen the symptoms
and the long run so they don't have... Yeah I see where you're coming from. Like it doesn't... it'll work for a little bit but it's like an endless circle of just getting worse going to drink
but that makes it worse so you drink more. Like yeah. That's leads to addiction and alcohol.
Yeah.
So what do your opinions on it guys?
I mean, I think that using marijuana it has positive effects
“but I just don't know like in a long run”
if it's super beneficial and it's still like an illegal drug. So if you make it illegal for certain people or like in certain states like you'd have to make it legal everywhere.
I feel like. But I feel like the use of the marijuana as a treat PTSD has more positive outcomes. They can still feel their emotions but they're going to be calmer
and they're not going to be so hyperactive with their emotions and they're not going to be super sure. You're all the time they're going to be meloded down
but not to the point that they have the zombie effect.
There are health benefits just because by which means you take it whether you smoke it, whether you take like gummies within or something. But in the long run they do have more positive outcomes
and it's becoming more like it's not as prohibited as it used to be.
“So it's like why is something that's actually”
helping these veterans being taken away from them and not allowing them to use it? Yeah. I see where you're coming from but personally I disagree. I feel like any drug that's illegal
like shouldn't be even experimented on because once they do marijuana for a long enough time it won't affect them as much. So then they'll go to the bigger
and more legally gas drugs
that have more health complications and I feel like once they start it'll just be off the rails eventually. And in Frankenstein we can even say that Victor had PTSD because of all the deaths
in his family. And I found a quote actually that says and what I must now relate can bite BTS to you. Know that one by one, my friends were snatched away
and I took that as like with his friends
“like could have only been not in this context”
but relating to what we're talking about for example veterans if they don't go to drugs but they witnessed like people that were their friends with that came back from more that do
and they noticed that the more drugs they take or the more alcohol they drink and they bigger the addiction grows the more they fall off the way I get in your breath and succumb to the addiction.
Yeah, I mean marijuana isn't the only of legal drug that you can use to treat PTSD. You can also use MDMA. Honestly, I have no idea what it is. They say that it's really good
and they've actually started updating clinical trials for it. So it is prohibited like it is not legal substance but they are expanding that. Usually MDMA with therapy has actually helped
the PTSD suffers so incredibly much. Yeah. The drug is resistant or tough and other hormones that contribute. And go.
I would say that Mary Shelley would be okay with the use of legal substances in order to treat PTSD just because in the time that she was around smoking and drinking alcohol
was such like a normalised thing that I don't think she would think anything against it. I mean, I agree in that aspect, but I do think like in one of her quotes somewhere
it says that she doesn't really, she doesn't want to mess with the natural course of life and nature and stuff. So I don't know if she necessarily agree
with using a legal drug to fix or help PTSD. I agree with Tarlies. I feel like in that specific aspect she would rather find
another solution that's more natural or just like let the brain overcome the PTSD instead of using substances to help it. But I also agree with Abby how she said
in that time period it's normal but specifically for PTSD I feel like she would disagree. I mean, if someone had PTSD rather than they probably
call them crazy. Yeah. All right. Well, this has been our podcast on PTSD.
All right.
