Schizophrenia is a disorder that causes a person to lose contact with reality. The person with the disorder displays signs of detachment from reality, hallucination, paranoia, and delusions. One of the more common ways to tell if a person has schizophrenia is if they have totally ruined any social relationship and hear voices that no one else can hear. A lot of schizophrenics believe the voices are government people talking to them or they are being talked to by aliens and that aliens are everywhere.
Schizophrenia is typically inherited through your genes. One of your parents or grandparents most likely had the disorder and passed it on to you. The disorder is usually triggered by some sort of stress and symptoms start to show. In the beginning you may see little signs like trouble sleeping or concentrating. You might see your irritable or have tense feelings. As life goes on you might develop problems thinking or with emotions and behaviors. These might include Isolation, Hallucinations as discussed before. Lack of emotion and problems paying attention are classic symptoms as well. Bizarre behaviors, delusions as mentioned previously and thoughts that don’t really associate with one another brought together in very loose association all can be seen in schizophrenic symptoms.
Of course symptoms depend on the type of schizophrenia present. For instance Disorganized schizophrenia symptoms may have showing little emotion, childlike behavior, and problems thinking and explaining ideas clearly. Paranoid schizophrenics may show anxiety, false beliefs of others trying to harm loved ones or yourself, or anger/arguing. Catatonic schizophrenia has signs like lack of activity, not much response to other people, weird facial expressions that are not called for, rigid muscles and or posture, and lack of activity. Of course undifferentiated schizophrenia might include symptoms from more than one type of schizophrenia.
Drug and alcohol problems are frequently involved around schizophrenics, relationships going bad, and suicide risk is higher. They also have a lot of disruption with daily activities. Antipsychotic medications can balance out the chemicals in the brain and get rid of some of the symptoms of schizophrenia making it easier to cope with, however there is no cure and relapse is very common. Clozapine and chlorpromazine are some of the drugs used to treat the symptoms. Only one percent of people get schizophrenia but ten percent of people have someone related to them who have the disorder.
Concordance in schizophrenia is higher in twins, forty five percent for identical twins and ten percent in fraternal. Because the concordance rates for schizophrenia are less than one hundred percent in twins it is suggested that experiences can trigger the disorder. Other triggers are things like birth complications, autoimmune reactions, traumatic injury, early infections, and stress.
Developmental disorders resulting in neuron forming wrong connections during fetal development can cause schizophrenia. The disorder may even lay dormant until puberty hits and changes happen in the brain. The forebrain, hindbrain, and limbic system are affected by the disorder. Or irregularities in any of these can cause the disorder. Excessive amounts of dopamine are a cause for the disorder. The antipsychotics help balance the dopamine levels.
Alcohol is involved in three percent of deaths in the United States. It is a depressant because it stops neural firing however in low doses it stimulates it. Genetics play a big role in alcoholism over 55 percent heredity and several genes have been linked to alcoholism. I would need to question Ron about his parents and grandparents. Most likely I would find out that someone else in his family is or was an alcoholic.
Death is known to come from consumption of alcohol if a person reaches unconsciousness from too much consumption and their blood levels reach point zero five percent fatality may occur. Alcohol starts off usually as a social drink that loosens people up and relaxes them for social interaction. Like anything it can be abused and people start to self-medicate with it if depressed or unhappy and often make things worse. Alcohol increases activity of urine in the kidneys and eventually causes the kidneys to become damaged.
Ron started drinking as a teenager most likely at parties and other social occasions and found that alcohol had the power to make things happen that normally would not happen if people were in their right state of mind. This party favor became a need for him eventually even when he got up in the morning. He soon felt more normal under the effects of alcohol then without them and needed a drink to perform the simplest of tasks. Alcohol then becomes more than just a habit it becomes a need to function and when that happens people tend to do anything to get more.
Ron noticed this need and tried to get help but you must be committed not only in the body but in the mind. The need is still there and you have to know how to master it. It might just be in Ron’s nature to drink if his family has a history of alcoholism but nurture definitely played a role in his alcohol abuse. Around peers for years who were doing the same thing he continued abusing alcohol as if it was the right thing to do. I suspect if he had different role models this might of changed.
The hard physical strain put on the body by quitting alcohol suggests that he would have learned by now not to do it anymore. After suffering hallucinations, delusions, convulsions, headaches, vomiting, and other things related to withdrawal syndrome which an alcoholic of his magnitude surely had. You would think that this suffering would leave a big enough memory to make sure he never touches alcohol again. This must mean his psychological attachment or biological attachment to alcohol outweighs the memory of pain.
There is no medical cure for alcoholism however it is treatable. It affects the brain in both short term and long term effects. Alcohol affects parts of the brain that controls cognitive abilities like the forebrain. It also can affect the hippocampus which is responsible for long term memories. Eighty percent of alcoholics have thiamine deficiencies which is important to the cerebellum because it controls respiration and heart rate. Alcohol can also block the ability for the brain to repair itself which can be a serious problem. The reason for this is alcohol inhibits nerve cell regeneration which is critical for repairs.
People typically check themselves into rehabilitation facilities where no alcohol or drug products are allowed. They go until they feel able to cope with the outside world. Inside they deal with the stressors involved with alcohol and learn how to say no to it when offered. I suspect that Ron learned all this as well but was never fully committed to quitting. You have to want to stop drinking to be able to. The chances of relapse are high if you go into a facility from social pressure or force. The chances are also high that an alcoholic who stops on their own will relapse at least once before going into long term sobriety. A habit alone is hard to break but a habit that controls your physical and mental parts of you seems almost unbreakable without setting up proper rules for yourself.
I would suggest that Ron set up rules as well such as having no alcohol in the house. Never go near alcohol or even in a place that has it unless some sort of supervision is around. You need an excellent support system and belief in yourself in order to break such a habit. I should know I enjoyed drinking, smoking, and doing drugs and conquered all three.
Mary has difficulty sleeping and the doctor will not get her involved with sleeping pills due to the fact that they might get her dependent on them. However is that not the case with lots of medications in the world today, I suspect it is. Doctors sometimes are overly concerned I believe and spend too much of our time and money trying to be our parents and not our doctors. Lack of action and continuous sleep problems can cause increased risk of automobile accidents, irritability, memory problems, and increased risk for heart disease, depression and functional impairment.
There is short term insomnia which is up to three weeks and long term which is above three to four weeks. There are three types of insomnia transient, acute and chronic. Transient lasts less than a week, acute lasts less than a month and chronic lasts longer than a month. All three can be symptoms of other disorders or a primary disorder themselves. They can be related to stress, anxiety, fear medical problems or treatments such as psychoactive drugs, or drugs for depression, Alcohol or things like restless leg syndrome can also cause insomnia.
When we sleep the brain replenishes things and fixes neurons that get damaged during the day or diminished. Since this rejuvenation process cannot be fully done by the lack of sleep brought on by insomnia the symptoms of insomnia are born. Mary has no medical problems relating to insomnia which suggests her problems are in her mind. She cannot sleep due to worry, or stress. I would recommend her sitting down with a psychiatrist so she can discuss all her problems. From there she will feel like some of that worry or stress was taken away by being able to rationally talk about it.
Studies show that both medical and non-medical treatments work best together and are more successful together than apart. Mary needs to find the source of her insomnia and work both with a psychiatrist and physician to solve the problem. Most likely in the beginning taking a couple ambien or trazadone to eliminate the symptoms temporarily would help and then starting an exercise routine to coincide with therapy would help eliminate the stress involved with insomnia.
I find that all three things alcohol, schizophrenia, and insomnia all share symptoms of each other and play a role in each other’s problems. After all schizophrenia has a strong relation to both insomnia and alcohol. Insomniacs who don’t sleep can have hallucinations common in schizophrenia and resort to abusing alcohol. Finally alcohol can definitely give people delusions seen in schizophrenia, and keep a person awake. For these reasons I chose to write about all three. They all follow each other in a perfect cycle and it is important to keep that knowledge in mind when faced with dealing with anyone who has any of these conditions.
Resources:
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro01/web1/Fisher.html http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001925/ http://insomnia.ygoy.com/2010/10/05/how-insomnia-affects-the-brain/ http://alcoholism.about.com/od/about/a/treatment.htm http://www.helpguide.org/mental/schizophrenia_symptom.htm http://alcoholism.about.com/cs/alerts/l/blnaa18.htm http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/guide/insomnia-symptoms-and-causes

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