Self-medication

Self-medication is a human behavior in which an individual uses a substance or any exogenous influence to self-administer treatment for physical or psychological ailments.

The most widely self-medicated substances are over-the-counter drugs and dietary supplements. The psychology of self-medicating with psychoactive drugs is typically within the specific context of using recreational drugs, alcohol, comfort food, and other forms of behavior to alleviate symptoms of mental distress, stress and anxiety, including mental illnesses and/or psychological trauma, is particularly unique and can serve as a serious detriment to physical and mental health if motivated by addictive mechanisms.

Self-medication is often seen as gaining personal independence from established medicine, and it can be seen as a human right, implicit in, or closely related to the right to refuse professional medical treatment.

Definition

Generally speaking, self-medication is defined as "the use of drugs to treat self-diagnosed disorders or symptoms, or the intermittent or continued use of a prescribed drug for chronic or recurrent disease or symptoms"

Self Medicated

Self Medicated is a 2005 independent film based on real-life events from writer/director/lead actor Monty Lapica about Andrew, a troubled teenager whose mother has him kidnapped at age 17 by a private company and forcibly committed to a locked-down psychiatric institute. Monty Lapica was not originally cast for acting in the film, according to the subsequent documentary, The Making of Self-Medicated (2007), the first-time writer and director was also slated to play the starring role in his own life story after casting-calls failed to produce a suitable candidate.

Plot

On the edges of Las Vegas, 17-year-old Andrew’s life is spiraling out of control. Unable to cope with the loss of his father, Andrew’s descent into drugs and violence is gaining momentum, and the once promising young man is now headed for self-destruction (in what Variety calls “an especially blistering performance by Monty Lapica”).

Andrew’s mother (Golden Globe nominee Diane Venora), helpless to control her son and fighting an addiction of her own, refuses to watch idly as her only child destroys himself. As a last resort, she hires a private company to forcibly kidnap and confine him in a locked-down and corrupt psychiatric hospital. As Andrew is subjected to the secret physical and emotional abuses of the program something inside him is re-awakened. He must somehow get free to save what’s left of his life, but to do that, he knows he must first face his own demons head-on.