What Do You Spend on Mental Health and Wellbeing?

Hi OzBargain!

During this cost of living crisis, I been struggling to stay on top of my medical and pharmacy bills for mental health and wellbeing. This includes GP/specialists/pills/vitamins/Beyond Blue.

Anyone else feel like they need to cut down? Is it because I’m already spending too much? Can you poll below what you spend on mental health and wellbeing?

The government just announced another $500M for mental health in their midyear budget.

Thanks!

Poll Options

  • 179
    Free
  • 67
    $1-200 per month
  • 38
    $201- 500 per month
  • 4
    $501-900 per month
  • 3
    $901-1500 per month
  • 8
    $1501+ per month

Comments

  • +9

    Before we answer, it might be fair if you tell us how much do you spend on mental health and wellbeing?

    • -1

      Even before any answer, it is a must not to come here & whirlpool, ask, and read/follow their answers to keep wellbeing and good mental health, and not to spend a cent for them.

  • You could talk to your GP and/or your Pharmacist about what you are on both Prescription and Non-Prescription.

    Your GP may see if you qualify for a https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/mental-health-treatment-plan…

  • +4

    $5000 per two weeks once a year :)

    • +9

      Hookers and blow in a brisvegas hotel?

  • Yes I spend 901 a month.

    • on what? just meds?

      • Drugs & Alcohol?

    • are you a student some unis offer free wellbeing counselling sessions

    • +7

      Hi OP if you're male, optimum your:

      1- Sleep
      2- Sunlight exposure ( circadian rhythm )
      3- Lift heavy weights or work out
      4- Maximize your testosterone ( go to your GP to do blood work to establish a baseline ), there're foods/spices/herbs that can increase your T. Low T is associated with mental issues.
      5- Heal your guts ( this is hard for most people )

      You will save $1000's and feel better, more munies to spend on Ozbargain. These basic have research paper to back it up, just go to https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov and read it if you wants

      Not medical advice*

      • @frewer how do you "Heal your guts"? Does that mean eating clean, going on a liquid cleanse, taking probiotics/get an endoscopy?

        • +2

          Just eat plenty of veges, some Greek pot set yoghurt and some pickles (all regularly).

          Once you do that you can probably forgo the vitamins at least, unless you have some deficiency

        • Peruvian breast milk will do it, but if you can't get that try BioGaia Gastrus

        • Depend how fk your guts is ( from alcohol, sugar, smoke, junk foods etc ). You can either do:
          - Emilition diet, cut everything out and go with keto or carnivore diet, then reintroduce other foods, veg, dairy etc. ( I wouldn't stay on keto or carnivore diet for too long, they both have downside )
          - Mediterranean & Asian diet.
          - Or fasting ( the best way ), start small work up to 3,5,7 days. Be sure to have a small amount of salt in your water !!!

          Im on a hybrid between the Mediterranean, diet, keto, intermittent fasting + some nature supplements to max my T. It was trial & error, but it works for me beautifully.

          Again not advice, talk to your GP for that.

      • What about for females? My testosterone is always too low or right at the bottom of the female range.

        • +1

          Everyone should do the baseline daily: sleep, sunlight ( sunrise, during, sunset ), workout, and proper diet, put in fasting if you can. These activities has profound effects on all human beings.

          Idk much about females, I'll look into it once I get married lol. You can save this for later
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQqcnYcKx68. I likes this one as well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCW2NHbWNwA. $2mil anti-againg protocol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkQenoT-MzA

          Again not medical advice, talk to your GP for that. Why're you trying to raise T ?

          EDIT: I forgot to mention to OP to take a free test from https://www.16personalities.com, it helped me to understand myself more.

          • @frewer: Thank you

            Why're you trying to raise T ?

            Just to be stronger and have more energy.
            Doctor wanted to put me on synthetic once but i hate that stuff and its extra dangerous for females

            • @bargain huntress: DM me with your any/email. I will send you the nature supp that Im taking. Yeah I don't touch any syn steroid …

  • +5

    Beyond Blue costs money?

    • i believe it does

  • +4

    I don’t spend much but my alter ago spends a lot

    • +3

      Happy Christmas to both of you!

    • +1

      Is that Dollar Specific or Cents General?

  • +4

    How are you spending $901 per month on "mental health and wellbeing"?

    I can't help but feel that some of this is the same thing we saw with the weight loss movement back in the 90s. Various things (often with very questionable levels of efficacy) dressed up as magic that can somehow make you lose weight, or feel better, or achieve wellness, have more energy and vitality…etc.

    If you have an illness, you need to get on a treatment plan. Most (if not all) medications you require will be covered under PBS, and should cost you nowhere near $901 per week. All of the other stuff you are citing (e.g. vitamins) are practically scams.

    • -1

      Drugs & Alcohol?

    • +6

      Mental health treatment plan - covers 10 sessions a year.
      And that's IF you qualify for it.

      Recommended price for a psychologist session is $300.
      You go once a week that's an easy $1200 out of pocket.

      Psychiatrist appointments can easily be $450 a session.

    • +1

      If you have an illness, you need to get on a treatment plan. Most (if not all) medications you require will be covered under PBS, and should cost you nowhere near $901 per week. All of the other stuff you are citing (e.g. vitamins) are practically scams.

      So SSRIs which aren't effective long term, but people become inured to, are a good treatment, while healthy food and supplementing B vitamins is the scam? You know B3 supplements cured a large cohort of schizophrenics a while back?

      Most (if not all) medications you require will be covered under PBS

      So you're not just a sucker for pharma, you also love PBS indications? I hope you don't have unexplained nausea and only see relief from odansetron, that stuff might set you back $20 a pill.

      • +2

        healthy food

        I never said anything about healthy food.

        supplementing B vitamins is the scam

        Obviously if you are prescribed vitamins, then you take them. However, the supplement industry as a whole is a scam. Most of the supplements sold do not have to go through clinical trials and the benefits advertised are simply not backed up by evidence. In other words, a scam.

        So you're not just a sucker for pharma

        You're confusing two things - the efficacy of pharmaceutical drugs, and the business model of pharmaceutical companies.

        The pharmaceutical industry is one of the most scrutinised. Drugs have to go through many independent clinical trials before they can come to market. The industry is also hugely competitive, and if any pharmaceutical company were to be selling scams, it would be identified by academia or other pharmaceutical companies (as has happened many times before).

        I'm not defending the ethics or business model of the pharmaceutical industry. Obviously there are a huge number of scandals. That shows the need for regulation, which is how we deal with any other industry.

        However, as a whole, there is an expectation of evidence required to sell pharmaceuticals - you need to be able to scientifically explain the pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics, mechanism of action, numerous stages of clinical trials, independent review from academia and other experts…etc. This is not true of the supplements and vitamins industry.

        • The pharmaceutical industry is one of the most scrutinised. Drugs have to go through many independent clinical trials before they can come to market.

          Was this response written by chatGPT? The regulators barely keep up the pretense they scrutinize anything at all.

          there is an expectation of evidence required to sell pharmaceuticals

          And yet we've been mired with ineffective and dangerous drugs.
          Most people are probably better off with sugar pills than the crap the TGA has rubber stamped.

          • +1

            @ssfps:

            Most people are probably better off with sugar pills than the crap the TGA has rubber stamped.

            So you don't take antibiotics when you're sick?Or is this just a convenient political position, until you're sick and desperate?

            Not trying to insult you, trying to understand your logic.

            Do you not take any pharmaceuticals at all? If you take some, what makes you fine with them, but not with others?

            • @p1 ama: They're probably more into the bleach enema type of pharmaceuticals :/

            • +1

              @p1 ama: I never said or implied I don't use pharmaceuticals. If you re-read my comments, you'll see i'm addressing your belief that quality of therapy can be inferred from regulators rubber stamps, political policy, and clinical trials (how many are actually independent trials?), and the lack of those means you believe they are "mostly scams". I'm saying that's really stupid in light of how poorly the regulators work and how biased and cherry-picked most of the trial data is.

              The fact you extrapolate that to mean i don't take antibiotics is especially funny considering the state of regulation and scientific standards for clinical trials back in the 30s and 40s.

              • @ssfps:

                The fact you extrapolate that to mean i don't take antibiotics

                Chill out, I was asking if you take antibiotics or not. Never assumed that you didn't. No need to jump to conclusions.

                If you re-read my comments, you'll see i'm addressing your belief that quality of therapy can be inferred from regulators rubber stamps, political policy, and clinical trials

                So again, back to my original question. How do you make your decisions on what works and what doesn't? Why are you comfortable with taking antibiotics (not all of which were discovered in the 1930s-40s as you seem to believe)?

                How do you know that whatever pharmaceuticals you do take are manufactured to the right standard?

                Obviously you have some belief that regulations and oversight do work.

                If you went to the doctor with XYZ symptoms and you're prescribed XYZ drugs, what would your next steps be if you've never heard of that drug before?

                Again, don't jump to conclusions. Trying to understand your thought process.

  • +9

    I buy a heap of chocolate. But only when Coles have it on special.

  • +6

    Would be good if the government let me claim my gym membership on mental health and wellbeing, that is my only expense spent in this area

    • +7

      +1 gym is as much mental benefit as physical to me. I feel shit if not going to gym for a week

      • +1

        100%. That's my place to get ugly. So ironic that I "never have time for it", but the benefits eclipse anything else I do/take. Benefits every aspect of my life. From sense of achievement, clear my head, confidence, appearance, sleep, fitness/health… I'm sure I'm missing others.

    • +1

      I agree. Private Health Cover Extras does let you though.

  • +7

    It's had a spike in recent times but there has been continuing increase in chronic stress since Reaganomics, leading to all sorts of health issues that society now has to deal with. Just another cost passed from the capitalist class to the plebs.

    • +11

      I see variations on this comment and it is very true - it is quite reasonable to be stressed, anxious and depressed when faced with precarious finances, uncertain employment, unaffordable housing, decaying environment, rapidly rising prices of necessities etc.
      If anything, giving coping strategies or mental health medication is like giving morphine to treat a broken leg.

      • +2

        giving coping strategies or mental health medication is like giving morphine to treat a broken leg

        The new opiate of the masses.

    • +2

      increase in chronic stress since Reaganomics

      I'd say since the industrial revolution. The promise of freeing us from toil was always a capitalist lie - the luddites were right.

  • +11

    $420.69

  • +15

    Its free. Because I learned resilience.

    Wellbeing is free. Go out and do activities, play sport, swim etc.

    • +12

      This

      Exercise, eat well, get fresh air, and interact

      I certainly don't dispute that some people have legitimate brain chemical problems. But it annoys me when i hear that 50% of the population will have a mental illness at some point. Just because you're feeling shitty once in a while because of life/money/job/relationship/study/Xmas, doesn't mean you have a mental illness. You will get over it

      I do concede that some of these sort of things (therapy sessions, meditation, and other coping strategies) are useful exercises however. I just take issue with "mental illness" as a catch-all

      • +22

        When you break a leg or have a hernia you generally "get over it" too. Being able to get over something doesn't mean it's not a real issue needing address.

        • I didn't say treatments AREN'T a useful thing. I just mean people are way too quick to claim mental health

          • +2

            @jellykingdom: What would you class it as then? Happiness? That's (good) mental health. Negative attitude? That's mental health. Mental health covers far more than significant psychiatric issues, the same as physical health covers more than injuries, cancer etc. It's a scale, not a binary state.

            • +3

              @banana365: He said 'mental illness' first, not 'mental health', so I think that is what he meant.

              He is not wrong though, 'mental illness' has become too much of a catch-all.

              The way the health system navigates mental illness is not helped by the fact that those in the field cannot agree on what it defines. There is a lot of subjectivity, and unaccountability in treating mental illness due to the perceived need for confidentiality.

              A lot of Mental illness treatment is easily pseudo-scientific, but not for want of trying. Unfortunately we just don't have the technology to really understand mental health and how the brain works yet.

      • +14

        Therapy sessions for mental illness is far from new. It used to happen in places of worship with the Priest/iman etc providing counselling and support to members of their congregations .

        However mental illness can also be as a result of trauma that people have been through. The trauma can be a small number of highly traumatic incidents such as sexual assault, being molested as a child or the things service personal have to go through etc.
        It can also occur due to long term low level trauma such as bullying at school or in the workplace etc.

        The fun fact about trauma's than can cause life long phycological injury is they can happen any time any where to any person such as motor vehicle accidents , assaults etc etc .

        So just because you are fortunate enough not to be living with a mental illness now does not mean you will not be unfortunate enough to suffer from one in the future.

        How serious are the issues around mental health ?

        The death rate from suicide is significantly higher than the death rate from things like Motor vehicle accidents. You just don't "Get Over" what leads to suicide.
        https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/data/de…

    • +21

      Damn, you can really tell the people who have absolutely no experience with mental health issues. This comment and the fact its upvoted is extremely invalidating and minimises how complex mental health is and how it can be a lifelong issue that never resolves.

      Are you poor? Just make more money! Are you fat? Just exercise more! Have diabetes? Eat less sugar! Kids are annoying? Just discipline them better! If only the world was so simple.

      You can exercise, eat well, have heaps of friends, be resilient than most and still be suicidal at end of day unfortunately. Depression sucks and simplifying it like you have is just wrong.

      • +13

        A significant proportion of the population (the fortunate ones) will always blame the victim, but people have no control over the body the are born in, and you cannot change your genetics once you have been conceived. Some people are born with a "broken brain", just as others are born with Cystic Fibrosis or Fragile X syndrome. I remember a Liberal politician (Hockey?) saying the solution to unaffordable housing was to get a higher paying job.

        "Wellbeing is free. Go out and do activities, play sport, swim etc." Going for a jog won't cure schizophrenia or anorexia anymore than it will cure Type 1 Diabetes or Syphilis.

      • -5

        Damn, you can really tell the people who have absolutely no experience with mental health issues.

        You don't think others have also had episodes of deep sadness etc from things like loss of loved ones? Feeling life after is never going to be the same?

        Love the you don't know me brigade that seem to own the copyright on feeling crap.

        Its my choice to be a grown adult and get on with life. If that offends you, please feel free to read something else.

        Are you poor? Just make more money! Are you fat? Just exercise more! Have diabetes? Eat less sugar! Kids are annoying? Just discipline them better! If only the world was so simple.

        Yes let's disregard those strategies that have worked for others for so long because that guy in the corner doesn't feel it would work for him.

        • +7

          is this kind of like the "why are you overweight? why don't you stop eating?" kind of advice
          I get you think you are helping, but you are not. so stop digging that hole

          • -2

            @May4th: I think both sets of arguments can be right here.

            Mental illness is a legitimate issue, but there is also a lot of debate on what that should include. Especially regarding funding in the health system, NDIS, etc.

            When medicare gave ppl 20 psych sessions instead of the usual 10, low-and-behold, a lot of people who just liked 'the chat' took twice as much time, instead of that time going to people of need. Who makes sure psychs see only people of need? What defines a person of need?

            You see the point?

            So when I see that the Govt is giving an extra 500mill to MH, I dont know if that is gonna do a whole lot of good.

          • +2

            @May4th: Stop eating beyond your bodies requirements, then no one has to say a thing.

            • @Juice-Wa: yeah nah that's not how it works

              • @May4th: Everyone being fat is a pretty western phenomena. You don't find tribes in south America or villages in South east Asia with people who are just genetically overweight.

                Yes some people may be genetically predisposed to it… guess what? Welcome to the 5-10 hours of aerobic exercise a week club.

      • -2

        Are you poor? Just make more money! Are you fat? Just exercise more! Have diabetes? Eat less sugar! Kids are annoying? Just discipline them better! If only the world was so simple.

        But that's literally how simple the solution is (except if you're fat, you just have to ensure calories out < calories in, also everyone knows behavior adjustment is a bit more complex than just using the belt). What those solutions look like for each person may differ in method but the answer is still universal. Imagine being such an airhead that you deny simple truths.

        Plethora of sources state that physical activity and diet have direct correlation to metal health and help to manage symptoms of existing clinical mental illnesses. There may be some special outliers who this may not directly apply to, but here's the thing, statistically, you are not special. The foundations of the behavior of your human body is the same as everyone else, and you are just like everyone else with depression. By trying to make everyone individualistic and special down to the level of physiology, you deny simple solutions to existing problems. Imagine being so fragile over the medically proven truths for your own condition…

        • +3

          You've completely proven my point. Yes, at its very base these simple things will work in some cases. But it's rarely that simple. You're simplifying overly complex things into childish truths. You know what would end the war in Ukraine? Russia should just surrender! The war in Gaza? One or the other side should just surrender! Wow, it's so simple.

          And yes, I speak for myself and others with depression - you can often eat and live life healthier and better than others and still have worse mental health because it's not just about exercise/food/living a "good and balanced" life.

          Again, I think you need to live through the experience to actually understand it rather than just throwing out ideas which while simple don't work.

          • +3

            @DingoBilly: Some people can run fast, some can't. Some people are good at English, some ain't. Some people who smoke live to 95, some who do everything by the book die from a terminal illness at 55. We're all different with different capacities to do different things, and in different needs of aid. That people cannot imagine that our minds are similarly various and not all the same performing or up to the same demands is a really curious position to take. IMO this is just part of the overall stigma about mental illness - it's just something people don't want to hear about or accept.

        • +1

          (except if you're fat, you just have to ensure calories out < calories in,

          That's not true, it's just a commonly repeated oversimplification, to the point of being useless.
          To illustrate, in extreme circumstances, merely enforcing energy burned > energy intake can cause your body to digest its muscle before burning large stores of fat. Starvation mode also generally causes a rebound weight gain when energy is reintroduced.
          It's entirely possible for a body to prioritize storing what little energy you intake, leaving you fatigued, hungry, and slightly fatter.
          Fatness is generally a symptom of other areas of poor health - hormonally, physically, and psychologically.

          • +1

            @ssfps: Glad someone else has pointed this out. Also the body can go into a stress reaction (due to the exercise and lower calories) that spikes cortisol levels causing the body to retain water. This can often lead to weight gain or at best stalling the weight loss, at this point many give up and then pack it back on.

            If you have a stressful job or home environment then you can expect the cortisol levels to spike more. Getting quality sleep, plenty of water and taking time out to relax is just as important as eating healthy and exercise. For anyone with young kids like myself the sleep part can be a challenge!

            Another challenge is that when most people (myself included) take time out to relax it is often catching up with friends or taking a holiday where you add in a bunch of alcohol and eating too much food… This kind of counter acts the weight loss of losing some water weight through cortisol release.

            If you feel that you eat fairly healthy and gets regular exercise, don't drink alcohol often or inlarge amounts but always carry that but of extra weight around the mid-section than this might be the missing piece.

    • +7

      Damn you must be cool. You have no idea what its like to be other people, with different upbringings and different levels of stress and trauma in them. Resilience is a good thing to achieve but it's glib to pretend it's so easy.

    • +3

      Its free. Because I learned resilience.
      Wellbeing is free. Go out and do activities, play sport, swim etc.

      next time you break your leg remind us to remind you to "go out and do activities, pain is but a mindset"

      • If your leg broke from poor bone density I think "go out and do activities, pain is but a mindset" is some good advice post healing. Imagine being so devoid of proper reasoning, you think a mental roadblock should be treated like a physical one. I guess with that world view "I am unable to do it" and "I don't feel like doing it" are the same thing. Which would explain the rejection to sound reasoning.

        • +1

          looks like you need some funding too mate

        • +1

          You don't understand that for some mental health issues, it is indeed the same as you are unable to do it as if you had a broken leg.

          Try to understand it rather than just basing it on your own experiences which are clearly not representative of mental health generally.

    • i tend to agree and my wife thinks i'm insane because my usual reply is to "move on get over it" (i just work even though it can be the source of stress to begin with) but not all people can do that, some kids/young adults have very legitimate trauma or unsupportive friends, families or backgrounds. heck even poverty can be a stressful burden.
      People immigrating to australia as good as it is here can be difficult for many (i still havent made real friends after 10 years)
      you dont sound like you have a family to support and their wellbeing to ensure

  • +5

    My shrink charges 300 an individual session and 400 for a couples therapy session. Medicare rebate on mental health plan helps for first 10 sessions of year (ie to Feb), but paying 900 per month out of pocket since then.

    Also paying $30 a month for daily antidepressants now under PBS- was paying $80 before they went to PBS.

    • +4

      Have you considered exercising? As Elle Woods says, exercising gives you endorphins; endorphins make you happy

      • +2

        "exercising gives you endorphins; endorphins make you happy". Narcotics like heroine and fentanyl bind to the same receptors as the endorphins (met and leucine enkephalin). They make people happy. Maybe the solution to human misery is just to legalize opioids.

      • +5

        Can't tell if this is satire but, if someone genuinely thinks this is helpful advice…
        This is the equivalent to telling someone with acne, "have you considered washing your face?"

      • +1

        if you are on anti psychotics/depressants you should probably exercise as they favour weight gain

    • -1

      Plenty of non-drug things you can try for depression. If you have to keep taking drugs then they aint working. And happiness is an inside job.

  • +4

    I just go to the gym and play games. They’re the best medicine.

    • Yep, tiddlywinks on the weight bench works for me too!

  • +1

    Looking at my Medicare history I feel sorry for my GP earning peanuts than some nutters!

  • +3

    Baggy or two each week really helps the stress levels (and I'm not even joking!)

    • Stress levels sure. Overall mental health maybe not so sure.

      • Got to relieve the stress somehow!

        • Yeah mate, a bit of fun - esp. a greater appreciation of art!! - def can make things more pleasant, but gotta remember the doc's good advice.

    • -1

      If you rely on escapism to deal with stress you're not really dealing with your stress, just ignoring it.

      • Do you say the same thing to people who….

        Go to the gym when they're stressed?
        Have a drink or two when they're stressed?
        Go on a holiday when they're stressed?

        Or are you saying what you're saying because baggies are not legal and therefore must be "baaaaad"?

        • holiday

          Usually (but not always) just another escape. Plenty of people go away, come back, feel great for 2 days then are right back as stressed and depressed as they were before they left.

          a drink or two

          Stress your liver for a few hours of escape.

          Go to the gym

          Of your four suggestions, the gym is the only one that's likely to address possible causes of stress. Whether or not somebody goes to the gym as an escape, it's much more likely than the others to improve their situation.

          weed

          Of your four suggestions, probably the dumbest. Doesn't do anything to address causes, like the gym. Doesn't even have a slight possibility of effecting your long term outlook like a holiday might (albeit unlikely). May have negative health effects, eg damage to WBCs. It's not a drug of introspection or stimulation, it's a pain killer. Stoners and dudeweeders are the weed smoking archetypes for a reason.

          because baggies are not legal

          Nothing to do with my opinion.

          • @ssfps:

            weed

            Of your four suggestions, probably the dumbest.

            I think you've been smoking too much weed yourself because nowhere in my above comments did i mention the word "weed". Stop going for the cheap stuff.

  • +1

    does alcohol count ???

    it certainly helps with my mental health …

    1.) don't get angry towards others when they stuff-up … or when they ark up at me.
    2.) it helps me relax.
    3.) all the worries seem to disappear.

    could say more - but will get myself into trouble.

    Ohh and yeah (in all seriousness) - did actually recently do a mental health workshop @ work …
    In terms of drugs that get abused … the results would surprise you.

    • Time you switch from Ethanol to Methanol, you get the extra M
      If your short the latter, you get the most hated subject dealing with numbers……
      So some school kids meant..

    • alcohol actually would be a worsening factor but without getting too technical it acts as a depressant (if drinking regularly)

    • Alcohol is not a healthy way to deal with mental health issues. If used as a coping strategy, you can become reliant on it day-to-day with your intake gradually increasing. As time goes on you'll get dumber, feel fatigued because of your shit sleep, neglect your relationships to drink, get fatter because of all the empty calories, lose sexual function, want to throw up in the mornings, be less creative, speak stupid because your brain is slow and rushing to get words out at a reasonable pace, eradicate your short term memory because of all the thiamine you piss out, feel like a failure/broken human bean, start to drink less because large amounts of alcohol aren't needed to put you to sleep any more, kill your liver and you'll also be poorer ($40 on a carton every couple of days takes its toll on the wallet)

      If you don't have a drinking problem, don't use alcohol to cope with your problems. Otherwise, you have a drinking problem. After accepting that, you should seek help from your doctor who will probably refer you to a free drug counselling centre. If you go and that alone isn't helping, you can get an antabuse prescription. Antabuse essentially converts alcohol immediately in to the chemical responsible for being hungover, making drinking far less enjoyable.

      Ethanol is literally poison for your body and the effects of being drunk are your body trying to process that poison. The less people drink, the better. As a caveat to the previous sentence, in scientific studies they have found that people who drink in moderation live longer than people who abuse alcohol or don't drink it at all. A possible explanation is that those who don't drink at all have previously had problems with alcohol that mean they really shouldn't drink it or they might die

      I know it's a big wall of text but as an alcoholic I wanted to share how it's not all peaches and rainbows when you're pounding a 6 pack or more per night

  • +1

    Have you considered psylocibin or MDMA treatments that have just recently been greenlit for the Australia market? I have heard that it can be hard to get into as it's so new there are few practitioners who are trained up for it but, these treatments have been reported to actually cure mental health disorders as opposed to treating or masking the symptoms.

    • +3

      Unfortunately experimental treatments aren't easily or cheaply available. Pot costs on average $278 a month. I think you can only get ketamine treatments at expensive private hospitals. Hallucinogens and ecstasy weren't even Schedule 8 drugs; they were completely banned by the nanny state. It is very hard to find a psychiatrist who will hep you access experiemental treatments or prescribe pharmaceuticals off label (like say Pramipexole, an anti-Parsinsonian treatment) for depression.

      Mainstream medicine is: take this SSRI. It will cure all of your problems. If that fails, take an atypical antipsychotic like Zyprexa in combination with an SSRI. If that doesn't work, you're *^#%$^%.

      • Agreed. The answer to them is always more drugs and different drugs. To anything.To be fair… If they say something diff and the person end up k@@ling themselves they are in trouble. The model is fuked. The onus becomes on the person to do the legwork and trust no one to have their best interest, or even give enough info to provide informed consent. It's exhausting.

    • +3

      Way too early to say they are good treatments.

      It's just that recreational drugs used to treat mental illness is a great headline.

      And mental illness is (likely) not just brain chemistry so any chemical treatment is just one treatment component.

      • i'd upvote you several times if i could

      • +1

        There is a decent amount of evidence that some illegal drugs work great, not because of brain chemistry changes but because of the psychological changes people can make in such intense introspective periods, analyzing themselves with the help of a psychiatrist.

        Many years ago (2 decades?) some people were treating opiate addicts with obscure psychedelics and had a really impressive relapse rate. I can't recall what it was, but a good chunk of them didn't relapse back to heroin in the 1 or 2 year follow ups after just a couple of sessions.

        That said, I really doubt MDMA and Ketamine would be good treatments (more like you say, just a short term relief and a bit of a fad). But stuff like DMT, Mescaline or Ibogaine aren't all that fun to most people - more of a hellishly intense introspective nightmare.

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