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Experts Say Opioid Addictions Travel With Other Addictions and Illnesses

By Network Indiana | Published on in Health, Science
Credit katie kryceski Follow / https://www.flickr.com/photos/katiekryceski/

Today’s opioid crisis is really a broader mental-health crisis, according to an I-U psychiatry researcher. Andrew Chambers told a statewide opioid summit opioid addiction usually appears alongside other addictions or mental illnesses. He says addiction literally rewires brain cells, in the same way as Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s — but unlike those diseases, the changes can be undone. Chambers says that’s the real problem. He says America’s mental-health infrastructure has been decaying for half a century.