CONNECTING THE DOTS BETWEEN MENTAL ILLNESS & ADDICTION
Our Mission
Welcome to A Cure for Nari! ACN’s mission is centered upon providing vital resources to grants and foundations which study and treat addiction and mental illness. When a patient is sick with both a mental illness and drug addiction, they are said to be dual-diagnosed. Patients who find themselves in this predicament and who are fortunate enough to receive treatment, are usually treated for only one illness. The other illness or illnesses are normally left untreated and the care providers for one illness are not skilled or educated on proper treatment. This process, repeated over and over again, for many patients, does not allow any care provider to “wrap their arms” around the entirety of the patient’s illness and treat the totality of the patient’s illness. The importance of adequate treatment is paramount. Through educating the public and bringing awareness to this epidemic, we work to prevent disease progression and its devastating circumstances. Dually diagnosed patients can be helped with whole health treatment; their disease can be treated and managed.
I see a future where everyone who needs mental health care gets it. We must end the separate and unequal treatment of mental health and addiction, and ensure each of us is able to achieve a full, meaningful life.
-Patrick J. Kennedy
According to the National Association of Mental Illness (NAMI), approximately 37 percent of individuals with alcoholism and 53 percent of individuals with drug addictions have at least one serious mental illness. That means dual diagnosis, or co-occurring disorders, happens more often than was first thought.
Approximately 1 in 5 adults in the U.S.—43.8 million, or 18.5%—experiences mental illness in a given year.
The Whole Health Approach
Our goal is to drive awareness, and to fund both research and treatment options for patients who have been diagnosed with both a mental illness and an addiction or dependency to drugs or alcohol. With your generosity, our team supplies the resources required to fund a variety of entities involved in the research of addiction and mental illness as a brain disease. Many times, the dually diagnosed have complicated abnormalities in their brain chemistry and family history which can be identified and must be studied. This research will, over time, allow for early intervention and will prevent cases, which are treated inadequately and without consideration of all sides of the patient’s illness. Our goal is the assurance of more successful, longer-term outcomes, earlier intervention, and comprehensive follow up care. This long-term approach to a lifetime of care must include both talk therapy, medically supervised addiction management, the introduction of 12-step programs, and the psychiatric treatment of the dually diagnosed patient. Our team will fully investigate those entities which we elect to support, ensuring that your generosity is used in the most effective manner possible.