I don't use drugs, or alcohol...but during a couple stays in the hospital, substance usage was brought up and discussed by the MHU psychiatrist. For some people, substance usage/abuse is a form of self medication. For a very short while, it will make you feel 'stable', so many will keep using--many times more often or increase their intake as they build a tolerence to their substance of choice. In some cases it becomes an addiction, which in and of itself a problem, adds to the existing problem(s).

I don't think the blanket statement:

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If you have a mental illness and you do drugs you have no one to blame but yourself for how bad it has gotten.

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is appropriate. People handle things differently, and turn to different things due to many factors...not just mental illness. But mental illness doesn't mean we WILL abuse substances, either. Some do, some don't...just like with the rest of the world 'out there'. Mental illness is no person's fault, even if the person has an addiction, too.