Treat addiction with better mental care
Pills. Credit: AP / MATT DETRICH
The real emergency is our broken health system [“Opioid emergency,” News, Oct. 27].
A true health care system would operate with the knowledge that biological and psychological health are intertwined and inseparable. Preventive medicine and parity for mental health coverage are key, coupled with yearly physical and psychological evaluations. We are late into the process if we wait for serious illness.
The most broken part is our mental health system. Addiction is a form of self-medication to attempt to escape the causes of psychological illness or unresolved trauma.The treatment is long-term psychotherapy — individual and group. The success is not so dependent on the type of therapy but on the strength of the nurturing therapeutic bond between therapist and individual. Medications treat only the signs and symptoms.
Today, the average length of stay in an inpatient psychiatric unit is six days. There is rarely any individual or group therapy. Six days it not enough to even determine the effectiveness of a medication.
The time to heed this national emergency is now.
Donna Trainor,Melville
Editor’s note: The writer is a licensed social worker.
