Recently, researchers have found that lots of men and women who have addictions to alcohol or drugs also have at least one personality disorder. This makes handling both very demanding. To make things even worse, overlapping symptoms frequently make diagnosis complicated. Finding a successful treatment can be challenging, too. The dependence and the mental disorder need to be treated simultaneously in the event the patient hopes to prevent a relapse.
Does Mental Illness Produce the Abuse Issue?
The Majority of the time, the Psychiatric problem occurs. Then, in an effort to feel better, the individual self-medicates with alcohol or drugs or both which then contributes to a dependence on the substance and you could try here https://modernaustralian.com/health-news/2731-co-occurring-disorders-and-overcoming-addiction. In other situations, drug or alcohol addiction may result in depression, anxiety and other more severe emotional and psychological issues.
Some statistics regarding dual diagnosis indicate:
- 53 percent of drug users and 37 percent or alcohol abusers have at least one serious mental illness
- 50 percent of people with acute mental disorders are also substance abusers
- 16 percent of all jail and prison inmates are estimated to have severe mental and substance abuse disorders
Because indicators of one Disease can imitate symptoms of another disease, identification is difficult. Lots of the signs of an individual suffering from drug abuse, such as depression, anxiety, paranoia, delusions and hallucinations, are similar to symptoms of mental illness. Professionals who treat people with a dual diagnosis can easily underestimate the seriousness of the individual’s drug or alcohol issue. Frequently, even the families are not totally aware of how bad the problem is.
Reasons for this are:
- Drug Abuse may use substances with their families or friends knowing about it
- Signs of drug abuse and psychological are so similar it is hard to distinguish the two
- It takes some time to untangle the effects of the two conditions
A large part of recovery from Addiction, and possibly even more so with co-occurring ailments, is hope. It is important to not forget that even though effective treatment and recovery of numerous ailments often takes more effort, time, and patience than only 1 disease on the part of the person affected and the treatment provider it can and has been done. Another crucial aspect of recovery and keeping hope is not to be discouraged if a relapse occurs. Although a relapse might not be a desirable part of recovery, it may happen, and most folks can bounce back from them fast, with some effort, and proceed with their recovery.
