Dual Diagnosis
Dual diagnosis is when substance abuse addiction and mental illness happen at the same time.
A substance abuse patient may not find out that drug and alcohol addiction often co-occur with other disorders, until seeking drug or alcohol addiction treatment.
Dual Diagnosis can be comprised of multiple substance abuse and mental health issues affecting one person.
What’s more, many people affected by dual diagnosis can function normally and may even appear to be fine to the outside world. But in order to help someone who might be affected by these ailments, it’s important to know that different combinations of dual diagnosis can include alcoholism and depression, opiate addiction and anxiety disorder, or cocaine and sexual addiction. Whatever the combination, each disorder worsens the other and allows the user to become dependent on both.
Substance Abuse combined with a mental disorder is very common.
Almost 70% of people with drug and alcohol addictions also suffer from a mental disorder like anxiety, depression, anger or sexual addiction. It is estimated that 17.5 million Americans suffer from a mental disorder every year and about 4 million of those people also struggle with an alcohol or drug addiction.
Individuals with mental illnesses may engage in alcohol addiction or substance abuse without their families’ knowledge.
It is reported that both mental health professionals and families of mentally ill relatives underestimate the amount of substance abuse and alcohol addiction among people in their care. This could be due to the difficulty in separating the dual diagnosis behaviors of mental illness from those of drug and alcohol addiction and abuse. There may be denial of the problem, because there has been so little information and help offered to people with dual diagnosis illnesses.
It’s common for a person to only receive treatment for one ailment.
According to statistics, only 12 percent of people with a dual diagnosis receive treatment for both disorders. When a patient is only treated for one of their disorders, they may seem to progress in their recovery, but in reality, the disorder that was not treated will cause the patient to relapse. This is why treatment for both substance abuse and mental health is crucial for a patient to have a real chance at a full recovery.
Recovery achieved by detoxification and medication is superficial.
Because many patients have a dual diagnosis, simply getting the drug out of their system and putting them on a new medication is not going to cut it. Dual diagnosis experts of psychiatry, psychology, and counseling not only can educate patients on how to manage their disorder, but can also provide special psychiatric therapy to heal the troubled pasts of many.
12-step group programs are very influential during the treatment of dual diagnosis.
These groups are very therapeutic, allowing a person, not only to step outside themselves, but also they also support a community of acceptance and understanding (each person knows what the other is going through).
Some of the components of a good dual diagnosis treatment program include the following:
Psycho-education - Lectures, groups, and individual sessions educate the dual diagnosis patient about the medical and psychological aspects of his/her dual diagnosis.
Expert pharmacotherapy – If medications are prescribed, only the most effective medications offering the greatest benefit and the least side effects are used.
12-Step programs - Patients are provided a range of quality in-house 12-Step meetings according to their specific needs.
Relapse prevention programs - Programs specifically designed for ongoing recovery of the dual diagnosis patient.
Adjunct groups - Focusing therapeutic work on specific areas of concern to the dual diagnosis treatment of the patient, such as; cocaine/heroin addiction, eating disorders, stop smoking, grief and trauma, healthy sexuality, compulsive gambling and women's, and men's groups.
Family member participation - Dual diagnosis patients are encouraged to invite their family members to participate in the Family Program.
Integrative therapies - May include acupuncture, massage, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), and Somatic.
Information provided by Transitions Recovery Program