People who use drugs and alcohol are being denied proper support to deal with their mental health problems, The Ferret’s From the Margins team has found.
Our team – which includes citizen journalists with lived experience of this issue – heard from people who had been on waiting lists for months or even years in some cases, for psychological support. Some were told that they could not access mental health services until they “stabilised” their substance or alcohol use.
Our findings come as the Mental Welfare Commission prepares to publish its investigation into the barriers people who use alcohol and drugs face in getting support with their mental health.
Its work was prompted, in part, by calls to its advice line from relatives of those seeking help with both addiction and mental health support. They said they had been “left out, or stranded or abandoned”.
Meanwhile those attending our From the Margins focus groups in Glasgow, and at a recovery group in Dundee, told us about the devastating consequences of failing to get the help they needed.
While waiting for mental health support, some parents had children removed from their care. In some cases their children were adopted, leaving them grieving and struggling to cope.
Many said the lack of psychological help meant their alcohol and drug use escalated because they used substances to “self-medicate”.
Women at the Steeple Church recovery group in Dundee told The Ferret that change was coming, but not fast enough for them. We have used their first names only, at the request of the women.
We spoke to Cara, who had been admitted to Carseview mental health unit in 2020 but later released without community support or follow-up. When we met, she was still waiting for community mental health support, almost two years on.
She claimed statutory services did not seem to recognise the help she needed: “When you’re in addiction you feel invisible – you feel invisible to services, invisible to workers,” she said.