Substance Abuse and Suicide Risk
AMSR for Inpatient SettingsAn individual substance use disorder is at much higher risk than the general population of suicide. If you're working with that population, the question isn't if they suicide, it's gonna be when. You know, with the opioid crisis in the last few years, we've gotta ask ourselves, how many of those deaths that were classified as overdoses were actually suicides. We have to be able to help them manage their thoughts of suicide because their depth of hopelessness can be so deep.
And and the vast majority of people with a substance use disorder, they have an underlying mental health disorder as well. A lot of people end up misusing substances because they're trying to self-medicate, right, a person break sobriety, they've become hopeless, perhaps. Maybe their, relationships are much more tenuous or broken because of a lot of folks and with substance use disorders, they've burned every bridge they've ever crossed. They may not have the kind of support community, family connections that, otherwise, they might have. We have to consider what are our options. What's it for every case?
We have to to know how to discern what's best for this client at this moment.