Alot of questions

[mindymcnally]

Hi Everyone, I am very new to all this.  A very good friend of mine has been diagnosed BP / PTSD he's currently incarcerated and they are medicating him through sedation, he is taking Depakote which is a normal BP med for him but they were giving him 200mg Thorazine a day until I B*tched and moaned about it till they changed it to Haldol and Cogentin (?) with the Depakote.  He's semi stable been in a depression for over a month, but he's also coming off of heavy Meth use for over 5 years and no BP meds in that span.  He's about to bond out, been there almost 3 months so he's thinking alot clearer but I'm worried about the addiction.  He's coming to stay with me and this is all very new to me.  I'm really worried that he's not gonna be able to stay off the meth.  It's gonna be a while till I can get him into a program.  any suggestions on where to start at home?

[ILADVOCATE]

Firstly the best thing is for him to be in a dual recovery program that is for a person with a psychiatric disability and a substance abuse issue. Secondly medication is for treatment not for sedation so the ultimate goal for medication is for a person to have a favorable response with the minimum of sedation and cognitive confusion. Depakoate is a standard mood stabilizer. Haldol is a typical that is old line antipsychotic and is far less effective as regards mood stabilization than the atypical antipsychotics (from Risperdal onwards). It would be worthwhile for him to find out what is best the most helpful treatment for him within his psychiatrist's discretion. This is a list of currently available mood stabilizers:
http://www.psycheducation.org/depression/meds/moodstabilizers.htm
As well NAMI friend and family support groups can be very helpful.

[paranoid_cataclysm]

Well it would help out a lot if he went to a dual recovery program that deals with mental illness and drug addiction at the same time.  There's also a group called Crystal Meth Anonymous which sounds like it would be of help for him but I don't know how available this group is and I know next to nothing about it.  I don't know if the dual recovery program is called the same thing every where but here it's call chemical dependency (CD) group.  The cogentin in case you didn't know (I'm guessing because you put a question mark next to cogentin) is a side effect pill for movement disorders caused my antipsychotics, which is very common in the typical ones which is what thorazine and haldol are.  Atypical antipsychotics don't cause movement disorders as often as typicals.

Here's a directory of groups around the world that may be of help:
http://www.crystalmeth.org/find-a-cma-meeting/cma-meeting-directory.html