When she was a young girl, Joan Ayala says she was sexually and physically abused by a family member, usually in his basement while her grandmother slept upstairs. Her family was no help, ripped apart as they were by alcoholism and mental illness.
Our hearts break when we hear stories such as Ayala's.
People have far less sympathy for abused children who grow up and, like Ayala, turn to drugs or alcohol in an effort to dull their pain or feel like a "normal" person. The abuse she'd endured led her to use alcohol, marijuana and LSD at age 14. She dropped out of school soon after and began using cocaine at age 22, she says, because the high helped her "imitate," if not truly experience, the emotions of others her age. By 26, she was a hard-core cocaine addict. Later, she began using methamphetamine.
The nation turns away from such damaged souls, providing little help to people whose mental illness and addiction are closely intertwined.About 8.9 million adults in the USA suffer frommental illness and substance abuse disorders, but only 7.4% receive treatment for both conditions, and more than half get no treatment at all, according to a new report from the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).
Without treatment, lives fall apart, and millions of Americans spiral downward into homelessness, jail or suicide each year.
In a series of stories this year, USA TODAY is exploring the human and financial costs the country pays for not caring more about the 10 million Americans with serious mental illness.
[For more of this story, written by Larry Copeland, go to http://www.usatoday.com/story/...-addiction/19861509/]
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