take this one, it gives you colours

[the_siobhan]

Is anybody aware of any studies looking at a correlation between depression and recreational drug use?

[EDIT] From the perspective of the drug use happening before the depression. I'm well aware of the other way around.

Comments

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

i haven't heard of any studies, but i know both through personal and familial experience that alcohol is quite frequently used to medicate social anxiety.

[sonjaaa.livejournal.com]

I tihnk people who struggle with mental health problems are totally more prone to self-medicate. Depression itself is an altered state of consciousness.

[raindrops.livejournal.com]

What sort of correlation? Causal, or responsive?

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I wasn't thinking in terms of self-medication. I'm aware that a lot of people self-medicate with whatever drugs are available to them.

I was thinking about all the hallucinogens and euphorics that I and my friends used to do, and I started wondering if there was any relationship between that and the number of us who suffer from anxiety and depression.

Did we burning out our serotonin receptors by doing too much acid, or did we do all that E to compensate for a lack of serotonin? Or is there no relationship at all, and we're just a bunch of self-indulgent Gen-Xrs who think there has to be a relationship between everything. *grin*,/i>

Not even meat on it to be a theory really, just a thought.

[raindrops.livejournal.com]

That was my question, which you've answered.

I can email me siblings (two are MDs, and have access to info the genpop doesn't, at least not without paying through the nose for it).

I'd be interested to know if there have been studies as well, considering the chemical cocktails I've consumed in my day.

[lilactime.livejournal.com]

You are familiar with the story of my Interview With the Vampire anti-depressant-fueled acid flashback, yes?

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Um. No.

Care to share?

[lilactime.livejournal.com]

It requires a bit of backstory.

In 1993, I was in a situation where within the period of two weeks I got dumped by my live-in boyfriend and got laid off from my job. I couldn't move out because I had nowhere to go - couchsurfing wasn't an option because I had no idea how long I'd be there. So I continued to live with the ex for an additional 7 months until I got a job. He put me through a bit of mental torture and I ended up having a pseudo nervous breakdown, except that, being the control freak that I am, my brain wouldn't completely break down while I was there. A year later, when I was in a new apartment, in a relationship with Greg, the brain went "hey, it's safe!" and THEN I had a nervous breakdown, dipped into a serious depression and basically cried, slept and ate for 6 months until my doctor finally put me on Paxil. I took the first and only pill about three hours before going to the opening night of Interview With the Vampire.

In the late 80s when I first moved here, I lived with two guys, Paul and Deryk. They eventually kicked me out so they could use my room for their male escort service, which they advertised as "Le Chat Noir" because there was a little black cat that was always in the alleyway leading to our door.

Deryk was a really messed up guy, and was basically doing tricks to support a drug habit that Paul and I didn't know he had. He also, for a period of time, believed he was the Vampire Lestat. Seriously. Paul was Louis, and I was the little girl, Claudia. Dude would buy me $300 porcelain dolls and shit like that, and would refer to me as "Claudia" in conversation. He bought himself a big black cape (before capes were trendy in the Goth set) and generally played the role to the fullest, although played is the wrong word, because he truly believed he was a vampire.

Now when you're prescribed anti-depressants, one of the things they ask you is if you do any street drugs. Not if you have EVER done any street drugs, but if you currently do. So I didn't think to tell anyone about all the acid I had done about five years previous. Anti-depressants work in the seratonin, which is also where the body will store LSD residue for up to ten years.

The very first scene in Interview With the Vampire is a New Orleans street scene that shows a whorehouse called "Le Chat Noir". That shot caused something in my brain to snap and I started tripping. I spent most of the movie on the floor in front of my seat, convinced that Tom Cruise was Deryk in disguise and that he had come back to kill me. I was verging on hysterical - Greg and our friend Liisa at one point discussed taking me to the hospital. It was a full-on acid trip, complete with trails.

I went home and threw the rest of the Paxil away and pretty much willed myself to get better.

[ev0lemi.livejournal.com]

from someone who's done and does rec. drug use:

DUH

[grimjim.livejournal.com]

Offhand: weed seems safe.
http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2004/10/28/depressionAndMarijuanaDoesSmokingPotPutYouAtAHigherRiskForDepressionOrDoesTheLinkWorkThe
http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/news/december_2005/denson.html

LSD, not so good.
http://corp.aadac.com/other_drugs/the_basics_about_other_drugs/hallucinogens_beyond_abcs.asp

In addition to acute effects on perception, thought, and mood, chronic LSD use may result in prolonged depression and anxiety.

Amusingly, according to the page, nutmeg powder is a mild hallucinogen when snorted.

MDMA seems to be the other way, self-medication.
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/332/7545/825

Individuals with childhood symptoms of anxiety and depression may have an increased tendency to use MDMA in adolescence or young adulthood.

[grimjim.livejournal.com]

Dosing on 40,000 ecstasy pills lifetime is not recommended.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/drugs/Story/0,,1746333,00.html

A special two-part MDMA study in recent issues of the Journal of Psychopharmacology (available online at sagepub), suggests long-term side-effects may be temporary. The researchers from the University Of Louisiana could find no significant relationship between depression and recreational ecstasy use.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Amusingly, according to the page, nutmeg powder is a mild hallucinogen when snorted.

Popular in prison, at least back when I was dating the wife beater. And a guaranteed ulcer as a small fringe benefit.

In addition to acute effects on perception, thought, and mood, chronic LSD use may result in prolonged depression and anxiety.

If I have time to track it down I'd be interested in looking at the source material. I'm wondering if they've actually figured out that they can prove causation.

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

There's almost too much scientific literature on depression and addiction - similar brain pathways are involved, and having certain genes may leave you more vulnerable to both. As kalmn mentions, self-medication may be one factor. Another issue is that both depression and recreational drug use are responses to stressful life situations.

[raindrops.livejournal.com]

But which came first? Damn those chickens and their eggs.

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

There's a reason I tried to avoid mentioning cause and effect, although you can easily find scientific literature that assumes a correlation between drug use and depression means the drug use caused the depression (often with an undertone of "They're getting their just punishment for using illegal and/or immoral substances". The French, for some reason, strike me as particularly likely to take this attitude to their research.)

I've been thinking about it, and I'm just not sure you could actually answer accurately "Does recreational drug use increase the chance of depression?"

Because the obvious experimental design is take a large population of children, do complete psych workups and family histories (because we know those things affect the chance of depression), split them into two equal groups, and then somehow ensure one group does drugs and the other doesn't, and then follow-up long term. Can't be done ethically (to put it mildly).

You might have some chance with case-control studies, again you'd need complete baseline psych workups and family histories, and (based on trusting self-reporting of drug use or not!) pair drug-using and non-drug-using individuals with otherwise closely-matched backgrounds and risk factors. It'd be an enormous job, and at this point, I don't think anyone even knows if you could do it.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

There's a reason I tried to avoid mentioning cause and effect, although you can easily find scientific literature that assumes a correlation between drug use and depression means the drug use caused the depression (often with an undertone of "They're getting their just punishment for using illegal and/or immoral substances".

T probably should have been more specific in my original question - I was wondering if there were any kind of studies that actually showed that the drug use potentially caused the depression.

I do find it very interesting that the clinical interpretaion is one of causation, while most people who responded to the question (some of whom I hazard may have done drugs or known people who do drugs) immediately identified self-medication,

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

T probably should have been more specific in my original question - I was wondering if there were any kind of studies that actually showed that the drug use potentially caused the depression.

I understand that, and that's where you got me thinking, in terms of how you would actually prove causation. I think plenty of studies have glibly assumed causation, but it's actually very hard to prove.

I understand why your friends identified self-medication - mental illness has a long history of being seen as evil, defective, sinful, basically bad and "other". When you are that "other", you have to think differently about it. And in this case, I think it's at least as likely to be correct.

(I've been diagnosed with mental illness myself, but don't do recreational drugs - I react badly to even moderate amounts of either caffeine or alcohol; aspirin makes me vomit, etc so I never had any urge to try self-medicating anything :-)

[excess-and-oohs.livejournal.com]

taking certain drugs regularly will slow natural production of brain chemicals (notably dopamine). your brain forgets how to make it, even after you stop taking whatever drug.

there's the predisposition issue too. hallucinogens in particular can awaken latent mental illness.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I've known a few people who did acid and then never came back.

[excess-and-oohs.livejournal.com]

arguably this is what happened to me ;)

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

And that makes me wonder about prenatal effects. At most it would have been once or twice, but I'm sure I did acid before I found out I was pregnant.

[excess-and-oohs.livejournal.com]

yeah me too. in retrospect i started getting sick when drinking or taking drugs while i was pregnant, though i didn't know at the time.

[liz-lowlife.livejournal.com]

Check out the British press ATM. It's all over the place.

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

I was depressed *long* before I tried any recreational drugs. Wow, did they help. (No, really.)