The Butterfly Effect

What is the Butterfly Effect?

The butterfly effect refers to a small action that leads to progressively larger impacts. Psychoactive substance (PS) use and/or mental health challenges can create or intensify many different psychosocial issues affecting a person’s housing, work, finances, or interpersonal relationships which will, in turn, exacerbate mental health problems. These problems can encourage substance users to increase their consumption, leading to substance use disorders, thereby perpetuating a vicious cycle where each disorder intensifies the other.

As the cycle mounts, other challenges may be introduced and grow over time, such as precarity, isolation, job loss and homelessness. This cause refers to the notion of syndemics (for more information, see the “further learning” section).

The Tornado

Born from a storm, tornados sweep up everything in their path. Substance use and mental health aggravate one another, leading to significant impacts on a person's life.

Testimonial

“For a long while there, I was in a dark place... a lot of money coming and going, a lot of using, a lot of bad endings. Eventually, I got to a point where my mental health was at an all-time low and my physical health was so bad that I wasn't eating or bathing, I was blacking out every two or three days, vomiting bile and getting nosebleeds—I contracted hepatitis C and I had a hole [...] in my nose. My mental health disorders came out in force during that vicious cycle.”

Possible Avenues for Intervention

Support the person in reclaiming power over the different aspects of their life by guiding them toward:
- Emergency services that respond to their basic needs (shelters/temporary housing, food banks/meal services, clothing or other goods donation services, support groups, etc.);
- Financial management services (debt consolidation, trusts): help them find strategies to limit their financial instability (suggest that they take a break from their credit card, set up automatic bill payments when money comes in, set up a budget, apply for last-resort financial assistance, etc.);
- Health care services (mobile medical clinics): help them with the paperwork to obtain their RAMQ card and see a family doctor
- Safer consumption services (supervised substance use sites, organizations that distribute harm reduction materials, etc.)

Prioritize what the person considers to be their most urgent needs, with the goal of building stability in their life and avoid further deterioration of their living conditions.
Ensure that you are not the only person providing them with support and encourage them to develop ties to the various services that could respond to their needs.