The Author’s Appeal to Readers
Indifference is the most terrible, sinful, monstrously unforgivable thing that can be imagined. – Egor Letov.
Hello! I am glad to welcome you!
I am not a doctor, not a professional psychologist, not an intermediary between rehabilitation centers and their potential clients. I am a drug addict’s wife, ex-wife. Unfortunately, I was unable to cure my husband completely, he remained a drug addict.
Who I am: leader of the people’s movement “Self-Help Guide for Smart Drug Addicts”, author of a free self-study guide for drug addicts, writer, volunteer, partisan and leader of the society for fighting goats (motivational centers and other devils who profit from people’s grief).
Mail: yuliabasharova@hotmail.com
Website: renatabasharova.com
Real name: Yulia Basharova
Date of birth: 12.04.1982
Place of birth: Dnepr, Ukraine, USSR
Place of residence: Ireland
Children: three daughters, born in 2003, 2008, 2013
Worldview: Anarcho-pacifist
Religion: Atheist
About the project and my activities
The method I wrote is excellent. Today, it simply has no analogues in terms of effectiveness. It works! It really does reprogram the sick brain of a drug addict. Even doctors trust us. Our method has been used to treat children of doctors and doctors themselves. More than 400 people have already been cured using this method, and you can too.
This instruction works 100% under one condition: you do all the recommended actions together, and do not select pieces from what you read and interpret them in your own way.
This method is written in Russian and it is free and open access. In Europe I charge money for the book, because your population can afford to buy a book, you have a much better economy. And I want to use this income to develop the project in my country.
But if any of you don’t have money, then write to me by email and I will send you the books for free. Please don’t be shy about emailing me for free books! It’s a deadly disease and there’s no need to be shy.
I translated it myself, so please forgive me if there are mistakes in the text. Hiring a professional proofreader and translator is unrealistic for me, it is very expensive. If you would be so kind as to point out the mistakes in the text, I would be very grateful.
I am not a doctor myself, as I have already said. And I do not intend to become someone important and with a diploma, for the sake of pathos. I do not need to hoodwink people with papers and impress them with a white coat. I can demonstrate my knowledge to them and show them a large list of people who have quit using our method. I am a practitioner, not a theorist. I am simply a free artist. And I am engaged in psychagogy. The method is based on it. That is, any non-professional can use this method. It is simple – education and persuasion of the patient.
I believe in anarchy. And I believe that people should help each other. And I know that the drowning man must save himself. And we are drowning, guys. What is happening now is pure genocide. And we must do everything in our power to prevent the mass death of young people.
How did an ordinary person manage to invent such a method of treatment?
This is a common question that raises doubts in people. I have been accused many times of being a secret psychiatrist who conducts illegal and harmful experiments. They demanded to show my diploma, to reveal my true face, they said that I use NLP and in general, a person without specialized knowledge is simply not capable of writing such things.
So here’s what I’ll tell you about this. You can be a drug addiction specialist with three degrees, but still not understand how to treat drug addicts. This is a fact. Just like you can be a philologist with an education, but not be able to write books. This is also a fact.
I just took it and understood the topic, thoroughly. I read everything in a row, and that’s it. I studied a lot, a lot on the topic. I consulted a psychiatrist, Maxim Malyavin, who has been working in a psychiatric hospital for over 30 years. I gave him a ready-made method to read. He approved it. Yes, I know the basics of psychiatry, the terms, but that’s because I read textbooks. That’s all. Each of you can do this, there are plenty of them in the public domain, online. Read and you will also know the terms. In addition to the psychiatrist, many patients and their relatives helped me. From them I learned a lot of information and details.
I started writing the site after I went around drug-themed forums with my truth, but I was kicked out and banned, trolled, defending the theory of 12 steps. So what else could I do? Only my own site, where no one would ban me.
My husband’s treatment story
You will probably ask: how can you give advice if you yourself have not succeeded? To this I can answer: I succeeded, at first. After I found the right approach through trial and error and was able to convince him to quit, he was in remission for 2 years (with a history of periodic use of 17 years). I think this is a pretty good result considering that the method is completely free and we did not contact any doctors. To be fair, after the RC, breakdowns also happen, and sometimes faster than two years after the end of the course. I had no money at all, so I had to reinvent the wheel.
When I learned about my husband’s drug addiction, I, like all of you, began to rush about and look for a fifth corner. The information that is now in plain sight, on the Internet, is mainly commercial and is designed either to attract people to the RC or to distance them from the sick relative.
Neither of these suited me, because my common sense told me that something wasn’t right here. I started reading everything in a row. Not commercial articles, but textbooks on narcology, textbooks on psychiatry, scientific works, dissertations, scientific experiments, experiments. In short, I invented the wheel, wrote these articles, which formed the basis of this self-study guide, and with their help convinced my husband to quit. It was completely easy, in just twenty days.
Do you know why it was a “wheel”? Because this information is as old as the world and these are traditional concepts of narcology!
Before that I had been fighting for a year, using “bottom”, tough love and other things that are so popular now. But there was no result, my husband lied, became more and more devilish and did not stop using drugs for a single day.
Then, after I succeeded… Do you know what happened next?
And then I came across his “sick” family. His mother denied the fact that her son was a drug addict, his brother refused to participate, his father also pretended that nothing was happening. So, he began to manipulate, they began to cover for him, and as a result, a six-month remission went down the drain. I tried to reach these people. But… You will read in my book what it is like to prove to an illiterate and drinking mother that her son is a drug addict. It is almost impossible, alas.
It’s impossible to make people like that even read. Or just listen. They know better! And I’m not strong enough to overcome an unhealthy family. And as long as there are people around the drug addict who “don’t see” his use, he won’t quit.
But we also need to take into account that I didn’t treat my ex-husband using this method. He simply didn’t exist then. There were several articles that motivated me to quit. But the whole system, the lessons – there was none, I wrote them much later.
So, it’s all classic. The shoemaker’s children have no shoes.
I was 35 years old when I started a blog aimed at helping drug addicts. I started writing it in 2017.
Those were the worst years of my life, as I thought then. My drug-addicted husband literally ruined me. There were endless scandals and stress in the house. But I was wrong, those were not the worst times, those were just the beginning.
The blog was gaining popularity. The method turned out to be very effective. By that time, I had brought my husband to his senses and he had been sober for over two years. An entrepreneur from St. Petersburg noticed me and wanted to implement my method in his rehab center. With the consent of the whole family, I went to Russia to help him launch the program. It was the end of 2020.
The collaboration turned out to be very unsuccessful. To put it mildly. In fact, it was just a theater of the absurd. And at that moment I realized that our project is not very good for the owners of rehab centers. And few are interested in working conscientiously if there are opportunities for easy ways, despite the fact that the result of standard treatment is relapse after relapse.
But despite all the upset, at that very moment, my husband snapped. I left him because I simply didn’t have the strength or desire to even talk to him anymore. He had sucked too much of my blood before that, and his family wouldn’t make contact.
So, the cooperation failed, and the husband broke down. And he also harbored a grudge. He began to plot drug-addicted intrigues, slander me to everyone around, tell everyone that I abandoned the children and went away to earn money. He set the children against me.
When I returned to Ukraine, I could not take my youngest daughter from him. He simply did not open the door for me. Neither the police nor the guardianship council could help, since he has all the rights as a father. Everyone sent only to court, without a court decision any instances were powerless.
I filed a lawsuit. The case moved very slowly. I didn’t see the child and couldn’t even call. A year passed. The trial was scheduled for the end of March. And then it was March 2022. The war started; they started bombing my city. We had to leave the country urgently. I couldn’t take my youngest daughter; he just wouldn’t open the door. And we left without her. I had to save my two older children and my mother.
This was truly the worst time in my life. The trial continued, at first I won. But after an appeal, in which this bastard indicated that I was pro-Russian and wanted to take my daughter to Russia, the court gave custody to him. The court decision stated the reason: in order to avoid taking the child to the Russian Federation, we are assigning the child’s place of residence with the father. This despite the fact that he is a drug addict, has no housing, no income. And most importantly, I had absolutely no intention of going to Russia, that’s a lie! And I’m not pro-Russian, I just worked there before the war, when no one knew what would happen next.
Well, it didn’t work out for me. But I really hope that everything will be different for you. We need to treat a drug addict together. Drug addiction is a disease not of one family, but of the whole society as a whole. One man in the field is no warrior!
How Our Method Works and Who it is Suitable for
Don’t believe those who say that drug addiction is incurable! It is perfectly and quite easily treated if you understand the essence of the disease and act according to the rules.
This is a self-study guide for drug addicts and their relatives. And for smart ones. This is not a joke or a marketing ploy. Our method can be understood and correctly reproduced only by people with at least average intelligence. If the brain is already damaged by psychoactive substances or a person is not very smart by nature, our book is unlikely to help you.
We offer a method of voluntary-compulsory treatment of drug addiction based on psychiatry and narcology. The main treatment tool in the self-study guide is psychogogy.
This is one of the methods of rational psychotherapy, a method of therapeutic training, education, and re-education of the patient.
Psychagogy is understood as all methods and techniques of therapeutic and educational work with a patient that are not based on suggestion (although they do not exclude it) and are carried out in a state of wakefulness. The main idea of psychagogy is to appeal to the patient’s mind, to convince him with arguments.
The book explains the nature of drug addiction diseases from a scientific point of view in great detail and simply. The information is given in the form of psychotherapeutic articles that remove the patient’s denial of the disease (anosognosia) and, in addition, provide the strongest motivation for recovery.
The self-study guide includes a detailed action plan for patients and their relatives. It describes how to convince a patient to undergo treatment, how to cure him and how to monitor him until stable and then complete remission.
This method is based on the works of soviet professors of psychiatry: Pyatnitskaya, Rozhnov. Old textbooks and monographs were fundamentally different from modern ones, because modern ones have already been adapted to the new legislation. In which the possibility of forced treatment is excluded.
Because of this, narcologists cannot fully treat and are forced to maneuver between the law and common sense. As a result, the treatment results are low. And the logical conclusion of the majority: drug addiction is incurable!
But it is curable! Moreover, unlike many diseases, even the patient’s family can cope with the treatment of drug addiction. Such a trick will definitely not work with appendicitis or a heart attack! What’s more, you won’t even be able to fill a tooth on your own.
This book will be a revelation for many. Since, in the last couple of decades, society has been taught that all types of addictions and codependency are not so many physical illnesses as spiritual ones.
Because of this, people start to get confused, follow the wrong trail, and become wise. Moreover, we are talking here not only about patients, but also about specialists who are engaged in treatment.
In this book we will explain to you in simple terms what drug addiction diseases are, how to treat them and what role relatives play in this process.
You will not only begin to understand what proper psychotherapy is, but you will also go through it by reading this book.
So, how our method “reprograms” the brain? Working with this self-study guide is very effective. The chapters of the book are written in such a way that drug addicts, reading, recognize themselves in different situations and feel ashamed.
They feel very ashamed and disgusted that they thought and acted this way. They are especially impressed by the fact that it is described in a book, which means that all drug addicts think this way. They have been studied! Their motives for their actions are predictable! Oh, the horror!
And they stop feeling like that sick person. They start looking at themselves in the eyes of healthy people and wonder how simple everything really is.
They understand where and why their illness began. But they no longer blame themselves and they do not need to invent new and new versions of rational explanation. That is, we unravel their sick logic and put their heads in place.
According to the patients themselves, after reading this book, the world of drug addiction, which seemed like something mysterious, breaks down into small puzzles. Here he is, dealing, here he is getting money for a dose, here he is manipulating his family, here he is swindling money, here he is bragging about his achievements, here he is promising and not doing…
And the mysterious aura disappears. They simply become disgusted that they are such fools! How could they not have realized that they had become slaves to themselves? And they have a wild desire to quit drugs.
But besides the fact that this book awakens the mind, that is, the desire to lead a sober lifestyle, patients write written assignments, lessons.
They write summaries for each chapter. And reading and summaries are the best mixer for a numb brain! It’s like pumping up muscles on exercise machines. In the same way, reading and summaries restore the tone of the brain. But that’s not all.
Exercises are given here that restore the memory of patients bit by bit. They don’t remember a lot from their childhood! And when they finally remember, old moral principles return to them along with the memories.
There are also exercises that train you to think ahead. That is, to plan the outcome of your actions. Any drug addict has a hard time with this.
The lessons also include a lot of fiction. A lot. This is to switch the established dynamic stereotypes of drug thinking to other thoughts. That is, to erase the files that have been used in recent years and force the brain to think in different directions.
And moreover, we teach relatives to strengthen and fix this result, with the help of “crutches”. That is, ultimatums.
This is a great help to a drug addict, although at first, they do not accept it and resist. But after their minds turn on, they themselves ask their relatives to give them “crutches”!
They are voluntarily ready to register in hospital, give up their driver’s license, and deregister from their apartment. If only they wouldn’t break down! Because they already clearly understand how weak they are in front of their own brain.
This is how our method works.
Let us remind you once again, this is important
The method is designed for patients with at least average intelligence. If a person is not very smart by nature or has had his brain severely damaged by taking psychoactive substances, then one should not count on success. In such cases, coding, religious rehab centers or the Minnesota model of treatment (12 steps) are recommended.
Below average intelligence can be understood as cases when a person completely denies science and says: “Well… This is one version of how the psyche works, but there are others.”
There are no other versions in science. Science is many years of experiments, tests, and only then an unambiguous and objective conclusion.
This is not a version, not a theory, this is a fact. Based on which all medicine and pharmacology work.
This is equivalent to denying that the earth is round, despite hundreds of proofs of this fact. There is such a tendency now, by the way. The version that the earth is flat is being circulated on the internet. And this version has a lot of fans.
So, if you are one of these fans, don’t read our book. It certainly won’t help you.
In this book, we will not bow and scrape or soften. We will not use the terms “addicted”, “alcohol dependent” and so on. We will call things by their proper names.
A junkie is a junkie. A drunkard is a drunkard. A huckster is a huckster. And when reading, these people should understand who they are. Drug addicts should not think that they are as dependent as those who love sweets or coffee.
We will also not divide drug addicts into drug addicts, alcoholics and polydrug addicts. From the point of view of psychotherapy, there is no difference between them, they are treated the same way, and all are drug addicts from the point of view of drug addiction.
Only someone is an ethanol addict, and someone is a heroin addict. The substance has no significance in psychotherapeutic treatment. Only narcologists from intensive care, by and large, need to know the substance. In order to correctly select an antidote for an overdose.
Therefore, if you read “drug addict” in a book, do not think that this information does not concern you, since you are an alcoholic. And vice versa.
Reading this book, you may feel offended. Take offense, it is useful. You can even write us an angry letter with your truth. And we will even answer you, starting the letter like this: “Evil janky! Thank you for your competent opinion, but…”
And when you get tired of being offended, go to the mirror and shake your fist at it. The person thanks to whom you read these nasty things is reflected there. He is to blame, not us.
After that, find Chekhov’s story “Letter to a learned neighbor.” read it carefully. It should help you overcome the feeling of resentment.
In the chapter “Need and Not” you will find a list of things that need to be done. You need to follow all the rules that are listed there.
If you do everything conscientiously, we promise you, you will forget drug addiction diseases as a bad dream. And then you will wonder: how could I get into this? Was it really me? All our patients say so!
In general, that’s all we wanted to say in advance. And now – to business! We have a difficult job ahead of us…
Can a Drug Addict Treat Himself?
You know, in the 6 years that we have been testing this treatment model, out of the 200 people treated, only 6 were able to quit on their own and have remained sober for 2 to 4 years.
That is, the probability of a successful outcome is 1:33 according to our method. Only one out of 33 people were able to quit, and the rest started and quit, unable to cope.
This means that we are faced with an exception to the rule here. And do you think that you will be among the exceptional? Very doubtful, honestly.
What can be said about the personality of these people who quit on their own?
Four of them are women, aged 25-50 years. At the same time, they have a fairly high intelligence and were well adapted socially before the disease.
One of them was an anesthesiologist, the second was a musician, the third was a schoolteacher, and the fourth was a blue-collar worker.
The men, both, had been using for a very long time and had managed to thoroughly ruin their lives and health. Both had unremarkable intelligence. They had simply done a lot of harm and had developed a natural anti-reflex.
Therefore, be reasonable. And do not overestimate yourself. By the way, overestimating your strengths is what brought you to drug addiction. Remember this!
Of course, every first person who comes starts telling us that they don’t have a family, and their family won’t want to participate in their treatment. And, in general, their family hasn’t cared about them for a long time, or their family is a drunkards…
We don’t believe in these fairy tales, guys. And we don’t recommend you deceive yourselves. We know for sure that if you want to involve your family and ask them for help, you will do it!
But you don’t want to. So, your subconscious invents absurd reasons. Why it behaves this way, you will read in the first part of the book. But for now, accept it as a fact.
And tell me: do you want to live? If you want, ask for help! Do whatever you want, even lie at your family’s feet, but get help! Give them our book to read and they will understand everything themselves.
Knock and the door will be open for you. It must be done, brothers, it must be done.
And don’t be ashamed! It’s not shameful. It’s shameful to die like a dog, choking on your own vomit. It’s scary and irreparable to maim your child in a moment of inadequacy.
For example, recently the news covered a case of how a young father, in a drug attack, tore out the eye of his four-month-old child, whom he adored… And for some reason threw the eye on the floor. The child survived but was left disfigured.
And another young father took a baby by the legs and smashed his head against the wall. The child died. Although he was looking forward to his birth and was happy to take care of him, equipped with a nursery, bought toys.
That is, it is shameful not to warn about this and not to protect yourself and your loved ones from yourself! Or do you think that those guys dreamed how they would maim or kill their children? They did not even understand and did not remember why it was done!
This is shameful, mean, and low. To know that drugs are terrible now and to do nothing. To count on chance and your great mind.
Don’t think that you are so experienced that you won’t overdose or have an accident. You can’t predict anything! You are walking on the edge of a cliff, and every day could be your last. You are suicide bombers! And those around you are in great danger!
We know of a case where a 40-year-old guy who had been drinking all his life, had been in prison twice and had periodically used drugs, died after he tried spice for the first time in his life at 40. He just choked to death on the spot.
So…
You need to not only read the material but also ensure isolation for three months. You don’t have money for this. You need to eat for something, trivially. But working and getting treatment at the same time – that won’t work.
We had one case that stuck in our memory very vividly. A guy came to our site, very literate and interesting. His nickname on the forum was john wick. Former expert in sports. Self-confident, of course, like all drug addicts. And we could not get him to involve relatives. He dug in his heels and said that he had no relatives and that was it.
At the same time, he ignored the treatment rules, did not arrange isolation for himself and stayed home for only a week. Then he began to treat and read our book. But even then, he did not calm down and reinvented his own wheel. There was no control at home!
He decided that he needed to cover the entire house with stickers that would say things like: drugs led me to poverty, drugs made me toothless, etc.
We told him, “John, don’t play with fire! This idea is no good. These stickers will go off like a bell to Pavlov’s dogs. You’re putting a spoke in your wheel! Go into home isolation! Can you hear me? You won’t make it!”
But he thought he was smarter. He was angry with us and said: “How tired I am of you with your reproaches! I am a sensible person, and I want to quit. I have been involved in sports all my life and I know what willpower is! I am 100% confident in myself.”
And then… He disappeared and never came back. A typical case and we didn’t even pay attention to it. We have a lot of people like that who start and disappear.
Six months later, a woman registered on our site. It turned out that she was this guy’s wife. And she had just recently given birth.
But her husband didn’t meet her at the maternity hospital. He died of an overdose while she was in the maternity hospital… Morphine and salt were found in the blood during the autopsy.
She had read our articles before, but she still couldn’t make him accept her help. She turned out to be weaker than a drug addict.
You see how it turned out. He wanted not to disturb his wife’s nervous system, since she was pregnant. A noble act. But john could not imagine that it was not he who had to be strong now, but his environment. He did not understand that he was no longer a strong man, but a person who himself needed help.
As a result, the wife was left a widow, the child was left without a father. And, God forgive us, it’s good that it is so. It is better to die from an overdose than to kill your child under the drugs. No one could force him to get the right treatment anyway.
Is this what you wanted, John?
Can Relatives Treat a Drug Addict on Their Own?
The self-study guide is based on the method of rational psychotherapy. This is pure psychagogy. And it is included in the basic methods of mental hygiene. Here is what it is:
Greek psychagogia — attraction of the soul, persuasion (Kornfeld. A.). One of the methods of rational psychotherapy, a method of therapeutic training, education, and re-education of the patient. Under psychagogy we understand all the methods, techniques of therapeutic and educational work with the patient, not based on suggestion (although not excluding it) and carried out in a state of wakefulness. The main idea of psychagogy is an appeal to the patient’s mind, convincing him with arguments.
You have every right to do this without being a doctor! In order to practice psychology, you do not need to have a license, a certificate of a narcologist or psychiatrist.
“Need” and “Not”
We have deliberately placed this information almost at the very beginning so that you do not lose it and can look at it at any time.
Of course, it is not yet very clear to you why all this is necessary, and you will find out as you read.
But for now, here is a list of what you should and should never do during drug addiction treatment!
If you bought the book with the goal of quitting on your own, then start doing these actions right away, just take it on faith that it is necessary. Then you will understand the logic of everything, we promise you. But why waste time? Do it right away.
What needs to be done
1.Isolate yourself at home for 3 months and only do treatment. If you are not going to a rehab center, but want to be treated at home, then be treated right at home. In the same place where you lived and used. No need to leave. Why it is better this way, you will understand as you read.
If you go to a rehab center, all these actions must still be done, and the prohibitions apply there too.
2.Organize support from your family and give them this book to read.
3.Buy vitamins, tablets for headaches, fever and for liver cleansing.
4.Do a detox or endure withdrawal at home.
5.Voluntarily surrender your driver’s license and car keys to your relatives.
6.In the presence of relatives, delete your accounts on social networks and in stores where you bought drugs, or let them change the password.
7.Delete the emails to which all accounts were linked or let your loved ones change the password for them.
8.Voluntarily give your relatives the contacts of all your co-users and their relatives.
9.Sell the phone and break the card.
10.Throw away your old wallet, bank cards that you used to draw “roads” and all other items from your home that could serve as a trigger. This is extremely important!
11.Throw away all clothing with drug symbols, souvenirs, posters with groups that sing about drugs.
12.Clean the house where you will be treated thoroughly, throw away unnecessary things. So that there are no remains of electrical tape, scales, and other props in the house. After cleaning, it is good to take a bath.
13.Sleep as much as possible, as much as your heart desires, and eat your fill. Provide yourself with peace.
14.Fill out the questionnaire.
15.Read the self-study guide to the end.
16.Write assignments from the second reading: summaries and exercises.
17.Continue doing your homework until the end.
18.Watch movies from the recommended list as desired.
It is strictly forbidden
1.Drink alcohol during isolation and for 6 months after it. Neither you nor your relatives.
2.Smoke marijuana.
3.Drink energy drinks (during isolation and 6 months after).
4.Drink those drinks that you drank together with alcohol (for example, cola with whiskey, orange juice with vodka, gin, and tonic).
5.Use nasal drops (for those who sniffed drugs and “killed” their nose).
6.Take psychiatric medications.
7.Do sports.
8.Do meditation and yoga.
9.Listen to music that you listened to while using drugs or that has a meaning about drugs.
10.Watch films and programs about drugs, even those that are scientific and useful, in your opinion.
12.Write diaries like Shichko (Shichko’s method involves describing your feelings)! You will learn why in detail later. But for now, know that self-analysis without a clear plan.
Enhances the hermeneutic delirium of drug addicts and they become even more confused in rationalizations and psychological defenses.
13.Read psychological literature in general. Read only the self-study guide and work on it. There is enough material for all three months. Don’t get distracted.
14.Quit smoking before a year of sobriety.
Recommendations of a Soviet Professor
Here we will present the essence of one chapter from a Soviet monograph by a professor of narcology. For ethical reasons, in connection with new legislation and copyright, we cannot present this text in its original form. Therefore, we will simply describe what the meaning is.
“The opinion has now become popular that treatment for alcoholism should begin when the alcoholic himself expresses a desire. This opinion is justified by the fact that forced treatment gives a lower result than in groups where patients themselves wanted to be treated.
But we do not agree with this opinion, considering some points. If we know that alcoholism is a disease that is treated by a psychiatrist, then how can a patient decide whether treatment is necessary or not?
Can you expect a patient with a disorder of desire to have a reasonable attitude towards his life? The behavior of such patients is no different from that of patients who are delirious. Alcoholics do not think about treatment until they have caused a lot of trouble with their own hands.
Thus, the expectation of personal desire is the expectation of a more severe status of the disease and greater problems in a person’s life.
In addition, alcoholism causes material and moral damage to society, harms the peaceful life of the family, and disfigures the psyche of children.
What right do we have to wait for the patient’s consent with such initial data? The medical profession presupposes a compassionate attitude towards patients, first and foremost. And doctors must be aware of what will happen after the patient leaves the office.
We believe that the doctor’s position requires an active position in this case. After all, doctors understand better than others what alcoholism entails.
The main task of the psychiatrist is to actively involve the patient in awareness and treatment. We must use all the means that we use to reduce negativity in other mentally ill people, or to obtain their consent for treatment.
All means are justified for this purpose! Sometimes it is necessary to contact the patient’s boss, sometimes – to involve the family. It also makes sense to contact people who have authority for the patient: colleagues, friends.
An alcoholic cannot be considered less dangerous than a person who has a venereal disease or is infected and there is a risk of infecting others. In all these cases, treatment is necessary, which does not depend on the patient’s decision.
The diagnosis of alcoholism must be accompanied by mandatory treatment. Even if the result is low. Even short-term sobriety is worth all the effort.
Treatment should begin without the patient’s consent, with the participation of the doctor and the alcoholic’s family. Forced sobriety will give the patient the opportunity, at least for a while, to think about what is happening to him.
It is necessary to warn the wife that such an approach will cause aggression in the patient and the relationship will temporarily deteriorate. Each patient must be treated, involving his entire microsociety in the process.
An exception can only be made for patients who are in the first stage and whose alcoholism is secret.
The remaining cases, without exception, must be considered in conjunction with the patient’s microsociety. It must not be forgotten that this is not so much a medical problem as a social one.
An alcoholic has many disorders, due to which he cannot understand that treatment is necessary. An alcoholic has cathothymic thinking, lacks adequate assessment of his actions.
The element of coercion should be introduced as early as possible.
But in addition to treatment, the family and the doctor must be engaged in the re-education of the patient. Be strict, but at the same time compassionate teachers.
You must be careful about the possibility of treating the patient to alcohol after treatment. If the family pours alcohol for the patient, then the doctors are also to blame for not working well with the environment and not warning them.”
Basics of Mental Functioning and Basics of Psychotherapy. What are Psychodefenses?
Any good psychotherapist knows for sure that you can’t trust the patient’s “testimony”. And they need to be thoroughly checked before drawing a conclusion and determining the root of the problem.
And we are not talking only about drug addicts and alcoholics who lie like they breathe, but about any patient. Absolutely any.
Even such a harmless one who came to a psychotherapist to improve communication skills or learn how to allocate a budget.
A psychotherapist who takes a patient at his word is a bad psychotherapist. That’s the basics! If you take a patient at his word, you can do a lot of harm by strengthening his destructive thoughts.
Do you know why this is so?
Because our body is created as a self-regulating mechanism.
For example, if a cut occurs, the blood coagulates and forms a scab. In this way, the skin is protected from pain, infection, and possible death from infection.
Or an infection has entered the body, and the temperature immediately rises to kill this infection.
It’s the same with the psyche. You don’t have to treat the psyche as something metaphysical and inexplicable. The soul and all that… It’s much simpler.
This is just a combination of the work of many organs and systems of the body that form mood, thinking, emotions, reactions.
And your mental state will depend on how any organ in this system works. For example, if your intestines are out of order, you will be a grump. Because the brain does not receive the required amount of serotonin, and you see everything in black. That’s it, simplified.
And character depends on the mental state.
And decisions depend on character.
And from decisions come the results of activities.
So, this is where we are heading…
The psyche, just like the knee, will feel pain from the blow. Pain, any pain, physical or mental (let’s call it that for ease of understanding), is a signal for the brain: alarm! Save the body. It is under threat.
And the process of saving our physical body begins. Completely natural and organic. It is called – psychodefense.
They can be completely different, here everything depends on the genetic set and erudition of the individual. But, for now it is not important, the main thing is to understand the essence.
Here is an example of such work of the organism, without any theory and smart words. It will be more visual.
A girl fell in love with a guy. But the guy is so-so towards her, rather cold. He doesn’t bring flowers, doesn’t say words of love, doesn’t rush to dates, doesn’t mention marriage, and even shuts her up when she brings up the topic.
If you look at this situation sensibly, it becomes obvious that the guy simply doesn’t love the girl.
But it hurts! The body can’t allow that. It’s a good tactician, but a terrible strategist.
As you probably know, tactics are momentary decisions, without taking into account further events, and a strategic decision is one that takes into account all the consequences of the action. That is, the body instantly suppresses the pain, without understanding what this will turn out to be in the long term.
Well, judge for yourself, it’s just unrealistic. To dull the pain, not only the brain is activated, but all other organs as well. Does the liver have life experience and knowledge about different love stories? Or the intestines? Or the thyroid gland?
No. Unfortunately, they haven’t read romance novels or watched TV series. Therefore, they “act” tactically. Here and now.
You will say to this: what about the brain? Our brain knows everything! We read, watched TV series and all this remained in the brain. So, it should make the right decision! And give a signal to the organs. And they will give the necessary hormones for the right mood and thoughts.
Oh no. You’ve been absorbing a variety of information. And your brain is filled with completely contradictory information. Like an internet search engine, really. And the brain, fortunately or unfortunately, is completely incapable of strategy.
In a critical situation, he will bring to light exactly that version of knowledge that can instantly dull the pain! The brain doesn’t care what happens next.
The brain (unconscious) and the mind (conscious) are completely different concepts.
As a result, the girl begins to think like this: he’s just afraid of me… He has a childhood trauma, that’s why he’s so cold and unapproachable. He had a bitchy mother, that’s why he’s afraid of marriage! But he loves me tenderly. He didn’t bring me flowers because his ex-girlfriend dumped him, and his trauma got worse.
Voila! It doesn’t hurt anymore. She’s having fun.
But she doesn’t have fun for long, as you understand. Then the betrayals, beatings, scandals, tears begin… And it becomes much more painful for her than it was initially. She might as well hang herself!
Here you will ask: what is this strange mechanism that works so stupidly? Why does the wound heal perfectly, but in the case of the psyche such problems occur?
And here, too, it is easier to draw an analogy. Have you ever seen a reading hare? Or a deer diligently writing letters in copybooks? We haven’t seen them either.
Meanwhile, we are just mammals. And our brains were not originally created for such a quantity of information.
Judge for yourself, how much experience does a hare have in love relationships? And can he make guesses and theories based on experience from books he has read or films he has watched? He cannot.
And we, in theory, shouldn’t do this.
Our brain is tuned to the simplest impulses, in fact. It must work like a clock, based on reflex memory.
That is, you put your foot in the fire, the information is deposited in your brain – you can’t go there. You eat a tasty carrot, the information is deposited in your brain – it’s tasty, you can do it.
That’s it! Our brain is not tuned to anything else, in particular.
And all human philosophizing comes from the fact that we live at the junction of our population’s evolution. We somehow miraculously learned to speak. Then to write. And not only to write, but also to read, to make films. And also, to discuss all this among ourselves.
And instead of 10 stories that should make up our life experience, we load our brains with a million and one stories. Do you understand?
Homo sapiens has only been able to write for some 5,000 years. And that’s nothing for the evolution of the species. And the development of the brain as an organ, including. Its adjustment and evolution to new skills.
Nothing for that period. Considering that our earth and its inhabitants have existed for about four billion years.
In a word… The brain still works in the old-fashioned way, we act reflexively and unconsciously, and this is why such unpleasant things happen.
Perhaps in a few hundred years humanity will learn to use reason and choose the strategically correct decision right away. But for now, this is impossible!
And using the example of the disease of drug addicts, you will understand this absolutely precisely.
In general, it’s a matter of this kind. A good psychotherapist knows about this property of our body, so he or she questions everything the patient says.
A good psychotherapist will try to hear the version from different sources. Simply put, he will take “testimony” not only from the patient, but also from his environment. If this is impossible for some reason, then a good doctor turns into an investigator and asks a lot of questions, from which he can isolate the true state of affairs and discover blocks of psychological defenses.
If he is too lazy to do this and nods like a dummy, agreeing with everything he hears, then as a result of such “work” it is quite possible to drive a person to suicide.
Why? Because a person, instead of solving his problem, will become more and more mired in self-deception. And the problem will grow like a snowball and spoil the quality of life.
But this is a saying, not a fairy tale… The fairy tale will be ahead.
What Comes First: Emotions or Thoughts?
This chapter is devoted to the currently popular analysis of emotions.
The exercise of tracking emotions is often used by psychologists when working with drug addicts.
The point here is that you need to track your emotions and realize what thought follows it. And eradicate this thought. Rebuild consciousness. And it is believed that in this way you can get rid of unpleasant emotions that can provoke cravings.
But everything is not as simple as it seems. To help you understand the mechanism of emotion, we will give a simple example.
You went to the store for some buns, the path to which leads through a forest belt, for example.
You walk into the forest and see a man sitting there with a bloody child lying in front of him, barely breathing and weakly screaming in pain. You stop in horror and see…
A man cuts a piece of flesh from a child, cuts it alive, then puts it in his mouth. Chews. It tastes good for him. You almost faint.
Your emotions? No need to list them, right? It’s horror, fear, pity…
Now imagine that instead of you, a man from a cannibal tribe went for the buns and saw the same picture.
His emotions? There aren’t any, really. For him, this picture is as familiar as for us to see a group of people eating watermelon on the beach.
That is, emotion is generated not by any single thought, but by your deep-seated attitudes. Your holistic worldview, which is hidden deep in the subconscious.
There is no way you can trace a single thought that caused a specific emotion. It’s impossible!
If you can single out any thought at this point, then it is more likely that it will be a thought generated by the psychodefense blocks.
So, we do not recommend you take this seriously. It is just a pampering, really. And it is impossible to change anything in your consciousness this way.
As for this exercise for drug addicts, it can even be considered harmful. Very harmful.
We will explain why this is so in subsequent chapters, when we examine the nature of drug addiction and alcoholism.
There we will return to this exercise and consider it in detail, in context.
Where Do Mental Illnesses Come From?
If we talk about severe mental illnesses, like schizophrenia, then these are congenital diseases. That is, a congenitally broken brain.
It is normal and as common as congenital heart defect or congenitally weak eyesight. The brain is the same organ, no more, no less.
Less pronounced illnesses, such as bipolar disorder, psychopathy, depression, may well be either congenital or acquired during life.
Moreover, everything here depends on the initial genotype. If a person has a weak psyche (we repeat, this is as normal as weak eyesight), then life circumstances can greatly affect him and disable his psyche. It will break. And the type of breakdown again depends on genes.
That is, if one person was betrayed and fell into depression, then the second person can start killing left and right. Have you watched the series “bloody lady”? About noblewoman Saltykova? It’s exactly about this.
If the psyche is strong, then little will influence such a person. He can be raped five times, abandoned by his beloved ten times, grow up surrounded by alcoholics, but despite all this, he will get depression at most. And not get angry at the world.
All these reactions are not rational choices. They depend little on a person’s intelligence, education, and efforts.
You must understand this as clearly as two times two. That is, only an ignoramus can judge a person for his hot-tempered and vindictive nature. A literate person understands that little depends on the desires of the person himself.
Every person needs to understand the basics of the physiology of nervous activity. This is very necessary knowledge in our time. Without it, you will constantly get confused and run into laymen, not specialists.
You all probably remember from school about Pavlov’s dogs. About the bell and the saliva. The bell rings, the dog salivates. And it began to salivate after the dog was fed, accompanying the feeding with the sound of the bell.
Pavlov began his experiments based on Sechenov’s 1863 book, “reflexes of the brain.” That is, he was the founder of the science of reflexes.
The fact that we live reflexively and think reflexively is a fact. Not a hypothesis, but a fact. Irrefutable. Medicine functions based on this fact, including psychiatry and even psychology.
Thanks to these facts, we have drugs that act on certain parts of the brain and help relieve pain, for example. Or stop a panic attack, etc.
You may ask, what does the pain reflex have to do with it? Because a certain part of the brain is responsible for pain. Also, for thinking, decisions, reactions. And these parts of the brain were examined during the experiment.
Pavlov went further and not only confirmed Sechenov’s work but also discovered new facts.
During this experiment with dogs, his experiment was linked to the works of Hippocrates, who identified innate types of human characters. Types of higher nervous activity (psyche, soul). That is, Pavlov confirmed this theory in practice.
Look how many centuries one theory followed another? Hippocrates lived before our era!
“Types of higher nervous activity – typology of i.p. Pavlov, a set of innate properties of the nervous system (strength, balance, mobility), determining the individual characteristics of higher nervous activity and the nature of the interaction of the organism with the environment.
The type of higher nervous activity is the physiological basis of temperament; it is an innate constitutional type of nervous activity – a genotype, which, under various influences of the environment, turns into a phenotype, character.
We are talking here about choleric, sanguine, melancholic, and phlegmatic people.
You have all heard these words, but perhaps many of you did not consider them scientific facts and did not take them seriously.
Meanwhile, animal training is based on these facts; moreover, this is the basis of pedagogy.
These are the basics of the basics. Any science that concerns living organisms is based on them.
Of course, genotype is not a sentence. With age, a person can and should work on his character. Become aware of his immoral traits and fight them. But this requires a certain level of intelligence and favorable living conditions for self-improvement.
And the level of intelligence is also genetically determined. That is, we have what we have.
Nature is wise. And it is not for nothing that it created different characters in people.
The main goal of nature is to preserve the population. And for it to survive, the pack must have leaders, assistants to the leader and followers. That is why we are so different from birth.
And as you understand, the leader will have a completely different genetic set than the person who follows him. He will be naturally bolder, more decisive, quicker, smarter.
And even if you get three higher educations in personnel management, if you are genetically led, you will not become a leader. People, like animals, sense leadership intuitively.
And if you are a natural leader, then no life circumstances will force you to become a follower. Even at the very bottom of society, a leader will gather his pack. And write a thieves’ law, for example.
Thus, life circumstances affect people in completely different ways. Therefore, judging people for mental illness is as absurd as judging them for their hair color.
Such judgments are not just stupid, but extremely stupid. It is, one might say, a litmus test for identifying a complete ignoramus.
Are there many mentally ill people in our population?
There are exactly as many people with congenital mental defects as there are people with congenital organ pathologies. Not many, let’s say. Very few. Literally 5-7% of the population.
But with acquired diseases, things are worse. Especially after 30 years, when negative experiences accumulate.
And, again, this is just as normal as the fact that by the age of 30, many people acquire all sorts of different physical ailments.
Some people have been drinking all their lives, and their liver is acting up. Some people smoked like a chimney and ended up with lung disease or “killed” their blood vessels. Some people carried heavy objects and got a hernia. Some people spent years sitting in the dark with their smartphones and “ruined” their eyesight. And so on.
During operation and depreciation, organs fail. This is a common occurrence. And we, like machines, need technical inspection and repair.
You have all heard the expression of psychiatrists: “There are no healthy people, there are under-examined ones.” This is not a joke, this is true.
Of course, only a few people turn into psychopaths. But the mildly insane, with some trauma and inadequate reactions – every first one, closer to the second half of life.
For the sake of convenience, let’s call them “everyday” crazy people.
And here it is a matter of luck, how his disease will progress. If a person lives in favorable conditions, he will read about his problem, understand it, and eventually come to the doctor.
If he spins like a squirrel in a wheel, thinking only about the minimum food, then there can be no talk of any insight. The person will behave unpredictably, inadequately. Torment relatives, poison their lives, and suffer himself.
It’s hard to reason with everyday crazy. Appealing to common sense is also useless. He’s broken. His brain doesn’t work as it should. You tell him about white, and he tells you about black.
The most offensive thing here is that this person is not considered crazy at all! Until he admits that he is crazy and “surrenders” to a psychiatrist voluntarily, those around him are powerless. The presumption of mental health rules. And personal freedom, of course.
And the everyday madman, of course, does not consider himself ill. He thinks that his environment is crazy. They just want to drive him out of this world. To take away his apartment, for example.
That is, he will not voluntarily sort things out and will not go to the doctor.
And if the people around them are the same, then the matter will be limited to daily scandals and showdowns, simply put. There will be no talk about illness at all. They will prove to each other who is the main bastard.
What are we getting at? To the fact that take a closer look at your family. Is everyone adequate? The success of drug addiction treatment depends on the adequacy of those around you.
Society’s Attitude to Mental Illness. Why are People Embarrassed by Mental Diagnoses?
Mainly because “learn and learn again” was bequeathed to us only a century ago. And not only to us, to be fair. In the west, in those troubled times, the bulk of the population was also illiterate.
The main book of wisdom for the common people was the bible. In which it is written in black and white that the spirit is a separate hypostasis. The soul does not belong to the body. The body is just a temporary shell.
But the state of the soul depends solely on the efforts and desires of the person himself. At the same time, despondency, gluttony, slander, and lust were considered great sins.
That is, by and large, people who were mentally unstable and sick were automatically considered sinners.
And to sin or not is the choice of a Christian, as the ancient prophets assure. If you sin, then it is your decision. Or the decision of the devil, whom you could not resist, because you are sinful, and your soul is lazy.
This reminds us of something… Psychologists, right? They have roughly the same concepts. Especially those who advocate positive thinking and visualization.
And so, it happened. For many centuries people were sure that all problems of behavior and thinking are the work of man himself. And he himself is obliged to fight his vices.
By and large, a hundred years of education has not been able to change public opinion. Because there are not so many doctors in the whole world. And they are only taught that character and behavior depend on the state of the body and its coordinated work.
And you understand that doctors are not messiahs to go around every corner and “open” the eyes of the population to this fact. They have nothing else to do. They don’t even think about it. They are doing their job. By the way, a very difficult and stressful one.
They don’t teach this at school. There are no advertisements like this between TV series and news. And that means this information can’t reach the masses.
Yes, of course, there are many books and the internet. But in order to find out this information, a person must have a certain question. He must start searching independently. And, thus, learn something new.
And here we again come across the fact that the majority of people are not leaders by nature. They are not at all inquisitive. They are satisfied with repeating what has long been known. In addition, they also work. And in the evening, they rest. Some with beer, some in the gym… No time. And no need.
So, it turns out that instead of treating depression, a person suffers, but persistently “works on himself,” tries to pull himself together and eradicate by the power of thought the defects of a sinful nature that lead to mental pain, in his opinion.
And those around you encourage you: come on, come on, don’t be sad! Keep your tail up! Look at what’s going on in Africa! People are starving and sitting without food. And you’ve fallen apart because of some lousy dismissal? Ugh! Spit and rub.
A person is ashamed to even complain to others. Deep down in the soul there is a latent fear of angering God or the universe by complaining about one’s minor troubles. Thus, bringing on even greater problems. Even the most ardent atheists have such fear.
And to admit that he is mentally ill and discuss it… This is something on the verge of fantasy.
How can a person discuss something they don’t know about? After all, in the mind of an ordinary person, any mental illness is something no less terrible than schizophrenia. Or even some kind of maniac is what the imagination draws.
Most people are forced to hide the fact that they take antidepressants, because society ridicules this and calls such a person a “psycho” behind their back. And not only strangers, but even family.
Many people, in response to such news, consider it necessary to say something boastful and proud: “but I think that pills are not a solution. A person must fight his bad mood himself. And work on his soul. Pills turn you into a vegetable! I have never understood why people cannot cope with their problems themselves!”
And it doesn’t matter at all that this “I am” is Petya (simple Russian name) at the kiosk, who “solves” his problems with a bottle of vodka in the evenings. Vodka is sacred and understandable. And pills… They are for psychos. It is extremely dangerous.
At this moment, Petya feels extraordinarily strong and wise, looks at his interlocutor with a slightly arrogant look, and his opponent begins to doubt the correctness of his decision.
And he doubts in vain! Petya is a psycho himself if he drinks vodka in the evenings. After all, alcoholism is nothing more than a psychiatric diagnosis. And a psycho who also denies his illness is a psycho squared.
Perhaps the old methods of treating the mentally ill also left some imprint on the formation of such thinking. Punitive.
When you hear the word “psychiatric drugs,” many people picture a schizophrenic in a straitjacket, drooling. And next to him stands a healthy orderly with a large syringe in his hand, containing “haloperidol.” he has an electric shocker sticking out of his pocket, with which he forces the disobedient schizophrenic to give the opportunity to give an injection.
Fanatics, rapists, and butchers. Punishers, Gestapo. This is how many see psychiatrists. And this belief in danger is simply written into the subcortex.
Of course, if you talk to such a person and explain that sometimes it is more humane to tie him up and calm him down with an injection than to allow murder at the moment of exacerbation or suicide, then this person will think twice.
For example, there was a recent case. They cancelled compulsory treatment of schizophrenics in Ukraine. And very soon the news appeared. A naked woman with a bag was walking around the city. And in the bag was the severed head of her 15-year-old daughter.
This happened because this woman decided that she could do without medications that made her feel unwell.
Is it her fault? No. She is a sick person. Her brain is broken. And the right decisions must be made for her. She is as disabled as people without legs. Healthy people should and must think for her. It is more humane.
If you chew it out, they’ll understand. But how many such discussions are there among the people? They’re more interested in discussing politics. They’re aces at that. And all these pills and doctors are for psychos.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.