Those who suffer from both substance abuse and addiction are considered to have a dual diagnosis. It is fairly common. A total of one out of four people with a mental health disorder also has an addiction according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration. Even in 2017, it was estimated that 8.5 million people had dual diagnosis disorders. 

The most common co-occurring dual diagnosis disorders are depression, borderline personality disorder, and anxiety. However, there are also other mental health issues such as schizophrenia, PTSD, eating disorders, and bipolar disorder. There are dual diagnosis treatment centers that help people receive the treatment they need for both their mental illness and addiction at the same time. 

Dual Diagnosis Treatment Options

Treatment centers typically do evaluations prior to admitting a person into their addiction or mental health rehab facility. This is done to make sure the right care is available and offered to their potential patient. Treatment care can involve several aspects including medication to treat the substance abuse and mental illness, including a several-day or months, stay in the actual treatment center itself.

There are other therapies typically offered in the treatment center to help the individual. Those therapies may include group therapy, individual therapy, cognitive therapy, behavioral therapy and trauma therapy. All these therapies help the person suffering to support changing their lifestyle in a positive way. Usually, there is some form of family therapy as well that allows clients to get the additional support needed to continue to stay sober after their treatment stay is completed.

Do you or someone you know have a dual diagnosis disorder? If so, reach out to our Blue Hills Recovery team to get the help you need starting today. 

Dangers of Self-Medicating

It is very common for people who suffer from both addiction and mental illness to tend to self-medicate. That is why it is very important for them to find a reputable diagnosis treatment facility. That way, they can receive the help they need to properly manage their symptoms. 

Self-medicating only makes the individual feel better for a short period of time. It eventually wears off and the individual has to use the substance over and over to help reduce the symptoms of their mental illness. 

Not treating both the addiction and mental illness makes treatment itself much harder. Self-medication is dangerous as well for the individual because it will more than likely lead to addiction and possibly an overdose. If both substance abuse and mental illness are not both treated at the same time, in a dual diagnosis treatment center, the individual is more than likely to resort back to their addictions to self-medicate.

What is Dual Diagnosis Treatment?

Staying Sober With The Right Care

In our area where we offer dual diagnosis treatment at our center. Individuals can receive treatment for their addictions, mental health disorders, and physical ailments.

In order to meet our client’s needs, a trained specialist will assess your emotional and mental needs. They will also evaluate your physical and nutritional status, as well. Upon the completed evaluation the specialist will formulate an individualized treatment plan. For example, if you need more group support meetings, or an eating disorder treatment center, the right options will be available to you.

The dual diagnosis treatment program in our area offers options such as:

  • Trauma-informed care
  • Gender-specific programming
  • Nutritional, psychiatric, physical, and clinical evaluations
  • Eco-therapy and gardening

Blue Hills is a dual diagnosis treatment center that will help you with your addiction and mental health illness. You do not have to be alone to battle addiction or mental illness – we can help. You can overcome it!

It’s easy to contact us by phone at today! You can also contact us through our website. We accept most insurances and have helped thousands of people recover. We look forward to helping you, as well!

Anxiety

Anxiety can cause intense physical and psychological symptoms depending on the severity. There are also several anxiety disorders depending on the type, severity, and duration of the anxiety involved. Some people may feel nervous, restless, and tense, which also gives them the feeling of the extreme danger of impending doom. People may even experience excessive worry which can be intrusive. It may even be nearly impossible for them to concentrate where it affects their daily functioning and relationships. 

There are also physical sensations that you can attribute to anxiety such as rapid heartbeat, trembling, nauseated feelings, sweating, rapid breathing and feeling extremely exhausted from being on edge. 

PTSD

Due to trauma, a person with PTSD will experience flashbacks of memories of the trauma. Some even experience nightmares. It causes avoidance of situations that bring back memories of the trauma. There are a lot of heightened reactions, with a great amount of anxiety and depressed mood. There can be at times agitation and hostility, loss of interest in pleasurable activities, guilt, loneliness, mistrust, depressed mood and even emotional detachment. It’s also common for a person with PTSD to also experience social isolation in addition to.

Depression

Guilt, loneliness, hopelessness, mood swings, sadness, loss of pleasure in activities, and lack of concentration. You can even experience excessive crying and irritability as well. Those are some of the things depression may bring. Even a change in sleep patterns may present itself as well – for instance, sleeping more or less than usual. Your appetite might also fluctuate and change where you might start eating more or eating hardly anything all. In certain cases, people also experience thoughts of suicide as well. 

How Anxiety, PTSD, and Depression Contribute to Addiction

As you can see with the mental illnesses above, unfortunately, they are quite common. It’s easy to see how a person would turn to drugs and/or alcohol to self-medicate in trying to reduce their mental illness symptoms. The symptoms alone can be overwhelming and intense. 

Although, they are not clearly seeing the bigger picture of the harm they are causing themselves by creating an additional disorder of an addiction that is further in all actuality exacerbating their mental illness by causing physical changes in the brain furthermore. In addition, it puts a lot of stress and hardship on their loved ones and family. 

The self-medicating is not sustainable and the individual will crash and repeat the cycle over and over again. Neither the mental illness is being properly treated nor the addiction, so there’s no resolution to the suffering. The only true resolution is a reputable, dual diagnosis treatment facility, like ours here at Blue Hills Recovery. This is where we have successfully helped recover thousands of people with their substance abuse addictions and their mental health issues.

Contact us today to get into a dual diagnosis treatment center.