Mental Health: Exploring Alcohol, Drugs, and the Impact of Stigma

This report provides a comprehensive overview of mental health, encompassing its psychological, emotional, and social dimensions. It explores the intricate connections between mental health and alcohol, highlighting how alcohol consumption can both result from and exacerbate mental health conditions. The report also examines the impact of various drugs on mental well-being, emphasizing the temporary and potentially permanent effects on the brain and behavior. Furthermore, it delves into the significant issue of stigma surrounding mental illness, discussing how societal attitudes and discrimination can worsen the challenges faced by individuals with mental health conditions. The report concludes by emphasizing the need for a holistic approach to mental health, acknowledging the interconnectedness of these factors and advocating for early intervention and support to improve outcomes.

Running head: MENTAL HEALTH
Proposal Speech on Mental Health
Name
Institution
Date

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It is with great pleasure to address this conference today. I will be presenting on an
overview of mental health, mental health and alcohol, mental and other drugs, and mental health
and stigma.
Mental health comprises our psychological, emotional, and social well-being. It assists us
to identify how we cope with stress and make decisions. It is essential at each phase of life from
infancy to puberty till maturity. Mental health can comprise a person's capacity to enjoy life, and
establish stability between life engagements and attempts to attain mental resilience (Currier,
McDermott, and McCormick, 2017). Prevention of illness at an early age might substantially
lower the possibilities that a child will suffer from illness later in life. World Health Organization
proposes that about half the world's people are impacted by the mental disorder. Approximately
half of the mental health diseases start by 14 years of age and three-quarters of mental health
illnesses develop by 24 years. 2 in 10 grownups suffers from a mental health disease yearly. 1 in
15 battles a severe mental disease such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.
According to Crum, Voss, Bounsanga, and Hung (2017), mental health is closely linked
to alcohol. Alcohol may have an effect on our mental health. The reason people drink and the
outcomes of too much drinking is linked to our mental health. Mental health conditions not only
consequent from taking too much alcohol they may similarly cause individuals to consume
excessively. In simple terms, a key reason for taking alcohol is to alter our state of mind. Alcohol
may momentarily lessen sensations of depression and anxiety and individuals frequently use it as
a kind of self-medication as an effort to cheer themselves up or occasionally assist with sleep.
Drinking to cope with problematic feelings or signs of mental disorder is occasionally referred to
as “self-medication” by individuals in the mental health discipline. This is why individuals with

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health conditions often drink. However, it may similarly be used as a means of managing the
acute mental disorder. Alcohol issues are more frequent among persons with acute mental health
conditions. This does not, however, imply that alcohol causes serious mental disorder. Research
indicates that individuals who take too much alcohol are susceptible to the escalated possibility
of developing mental health conditions and alcohol intake may be a contributing aspect to certain
mental health conditions, like depression.
Drinking impacts our mood by reducing inhibition. Characteristically, too much alcohol
intake implies less personal restrictions are in place. Furthermore, alcohol may distract the
body’s capacity to rest. This distraction with patterns of sleep may result in lessened energy
levels. Alcohol similarly weakens the nervous system, and this may make a person's mood vary.
It may likewise assist "numb" individual's emotions so that they can evade tough issues in our
lives. Alcohol may similarly expose or escalate individual’s core feelings like arousing past
reminiscences of trauma or generating any bottled-up feelings which are linked to painful
incidents of the past (Karriker, Li, and Greenfield, 2018). These reminiscences may be very
powerful that they generate devastating anxiety, shame, or depression. Re-living these reminisces
and dark emotions while under the effect of alcohol might pose a risk to individual well-being
besides the well-being of others. One of the major problems linked with consuming alcohol to
cope with mental health issues is that habitual alcohol consumption alters the harmony of the
brain. It lowers the levels of the brain element serotonin; an essential element in depression.
Owing to this weakening, a cyclic procedure starts where one consumes alcohol to dismiss
depression, which causes serotonin levels in the brain to be weakened resulting in one feeling

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even more depressed, and therefore, requiring even more alcohol to then medicate this
depression.
An individual’s mental health may also be affected by drugs. Drugs are psychoactive
including heroin, cannabis, ecstasy, and alcohol, have the capacity to impact one's mood. They
may spur particular feelings or numb others. This can be the reason people use them. The
variations in one's behavior or mood occasioned by drugs are the outcomes of variations to one's
brain. This is likewise the part of an individual that controls one's mental wellbeing. Drugs
inhibit with the elements in your brain. This impacts the messages those elements are attempting
to covey. One needs to balance up the temporary and permanent impacts that drugs may have on
an individual's mental wellbeing. The temporary impacts might be somewhat something one
enjoys, but maybe only if they occur like one anticipates them to. One might likewise have
undesirable temporary drug-induced side-effects, like feeling or acting unusually. These may be
temporary as they pass while the drug leaves the system. Drugs may have a permanent effect on
one's mental wellbeing as well, and one needs to deliberate seriously on their individual strengths
and weaknesses.one should consider if they use drugs to do away with negative emotions and if
they are in control of their use (Estrada, 2019).
All psychoactive drugs can lead to mental health problems while one is consuming them
as they clear the drug from their body. These effects are normally temporary or short term. These
may comprise of mood swings, anxiety, sleep issues, psychosis, and depression. Psychoactive
drugs can cause continuous mental wellbeing issues. It is, however, not clear why this occurs to
certain individuals and not others. It might be that using a drug has prompted a mental disorder
one was not aware they had, or the drug alters the way a specific element impacts one’s brain

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operations. Urban Review (2018) asserts that long-standing impacts of drugs on mental health
include schizophrenia, depression, and ecstasy. Furthermore, living with a double diagnosis may
be tough for an individual. A double diagnosis is when one has two distinct illnesses; a mental
health disorder and a drug addiction. This implies that health services have to work
collaboratively to best offer care. When attempting to cope with a mental health illness and
addiction is hard to determine where one ends and the other one starts. It may not be certain
which one comes first. Individuals with mental health issues occasionally use drugs to deal with
the turmoil, the undesirable feelings and the stigma of disorders such as schizophrenia and
depression. However, turning to drugs with mental health conditions may result in difficulties of
the disorder and affect with recommended medicines one is taking. The mental health illnesses
that frequently happen with drug abuse are schizophrenia, anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder,
attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and depression.
Individuals with mental health illnesses say that the social stigma linked to mental ill
wellbeing and the discrimination they face may make their problems worse and make it
problematic to recuperate (Connor, Church, and Yondorf, 2016). Mental disorder is prevalent. It
affects hundreds of thousands of people in Australia and their associates, relatives, colleagues,
and the wider community. Most individuals who face mental health conditions recuperate fully,
or are capable of living with and cope with them, particularly if they receive assistance early on.
Even though a majority of individuals are affected, there is a strong social stigma linked to
mental ill health, and individuals with mental health conditions may face discrimination in all
facets of their lives. Many individual’s illnesses are worsened by the discrimination and stigma
they face, from the community, relative, associates, and colleagues as well. About eight out of

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ten individuals with mental health conditions say that discrimination and stigma have an
undesirable impact on their lives.
We know that individuals with mental health conditions are among the least possible of
any group with a long-standing health illness or incapacity to live in modest housing, get
employment, be in a constant, long-standing relationship, and be socially involved in
conventional society. This is because society as a whole has categorized opinions about mental
disorder and how it impacts individuals. Many individuals believe that individuals with mental ill
health are aggressive and unsafe when actually they are more at danger of being confronted or
hurting themselves than hurting other individuals (Journal of Clinical Psychology, 2018). Stigma
and discrimination may similarly aggravate someone's mental health conditions, and inhibit
receiving assistance and therapy, and their recuperation. Social exclusion, indecent housing,
joblessness, and poverty are all connected with ill health. Therefore, discrimination and stigma
may trap individuals in a series of illness. The condition is worsened by the media. Media
pronouncements frequently connect mental disorder with aggression, or portray individuals with
mental health conditions as harmful, immoral, malicious, or much incapacitated to lead normal
contented lives (Bishop, 2018).
In conclusion, from the points presented above, it is clear that mental health is linked to
many other issues and should, therefore, be addressed with much consideration. Thank you for
your attention.

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References
Bishop, L. (2018). A scoping review of mental health coaching. Coaching Psychologist, 14(1),
5–15. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=s3h&AN=129917160&site=ehost-live
Connor, W. G., Church, C., & Yondorf, B. (2016). Tackling Big Issues Together: The Story of
One Funders Network Promoting the Mental Health of Young Children. Foundation
Review, 8(4), 44–57. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=buh&AN=119711369&site=ehost-live
Crum, A. B., Voss, M. W., Bounsanga, J., & Hung, M. (2017). Are illicit drug users more likely
to receive mental health treatment? Drugs: Education, Prevention & Policy, 24(2), 134–
143. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=s3h&AN=121504467&site=ehost-live
Currier, J. M., McDermott, R. C., & McCormick, W. H. (2017). Mental health treatment-related
stigma and professional help-seeking among student veterans. Psychological
Services, 14(4), 531–542. https://doi.org/10.1037/ser0000129
Estrada, R. (2019). benefit trends: supporting mental health in the workplace. Benefits
Magazine, 56(1), 8–9. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=buh&AN=134420820&site=ehost-live
Karriker, J. K. J., Li, L., & Greenfield, T. K. (2018). Estimating mental health impacts of
alcohol’s harms from other drinkers: using propensity scoring methods with national
cross‐sectional data from the United States. Addiction, 113(10), 1826–1839. Retrieved

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