People who suffer from mental health issues are often prone to seek assistance in addiction.
On the other hand, people who are more prone to seek refuge in addictive habits also develop critical mental health issues because drugs alter their brain chemicals substantially.
This is why, when you look for an addiction treatment center, you must check if the detox center treats mental health issues as well. AscendantNY is one such detox center that proclaims the benefits of dual diagnosis.
Hence, if your loved one is suffering from either of these problems, you must interest them in dual diagnosis. So keep scrolling down, and we will make you understand how these two phenomena are correlated.
Are Mental Health And Addiction Recovery Correlated?-10 Things To Note
Mental health and addiction recovery cannot complement each other if the treatment does not address both of these concerns. Check the top 10 things if you want to understand why these two phenomena are related.
1: People Start Addiction To Self-Medicate Mental Health Problems
When people suffer from mental health problems like PTSD, ADHD, depression, or anxiety, they often seek refuge in addiction.
One of the most common reasons for this behavior is that they don’t have a trusted adult, friend, or family member in their lives to feel comfortable sharing these problems.
This is why, without asking for professional help, they indulge in addictive behaviors, which, in turn, worsen their mental and physical health conditions.
2: Addictive Behaviors Possess The Risk Of Underlying Mental Health Issues
Mental health issues emerge due to various reasons such as environmental factors, genetics, and other factors.
Among all these factors, addiction is also a prominent one. If you are at risk of a mental health issue as it runs in your family, indulging in addiction can trigger that.
It means people who don’t have a mental health issue in their families will be less likely to develop one during addiction than people who already have heredity of such problems.
3: Denial Is Common In Both
When you suffer from mental health issues or go through an addiction, you are likely to deny it. This is why the treatment becomes even more difficult because you are not ready to admit that you have a problem.
Professional therapists or interventionists spend hours preparing the perfect triggers that compel you to move past the denial and acknowledge your problem.
If the denial persists, no amount of professional help will be able to get you out of this loop. So, stop escaping, and face your problems head-on.
4: Dual Diagnosis Is Important
The doctors must not disregard the impact of mental health while treating an addiction patient, and they cannot ignore the effect of addiction while treating a mental health patient.
If they need to treat both conditions in one treatment approach, dual diagnosis is the way to go.
In this treatment approach, they will find out which one of these diseases was caused by the other and tailor the treatment plan accordingly.
5: Sobriety Is Essential During The Treatment
If the doctor feels that your mental health problems forced you to indulge in drugs and alcohol addiction, he will first attempt to cure your mental issues.
However, it would help if you stayed sober during the treatment. Your doctor will prescribe you some medications during the treatment but mixing them with alcohol or taking them more than the prescribed amount could cause severe side effects.
This is why talking therapy can only cure the patient to a certain extent. Your doctor must take some strict measures that will keep your addiction urges at bay while they treat your mental health problem.
6 Relapse Is A Part
Relapse is a part of addiction recovery treatment as much as it is a part of your addiction recovery journey.
It is a common setback in more than half of these cases. So, just because you relapsed once doesn’t mean you cannot overcome this problem.
If you have enough willpower and family support, you will push past the relapse and will commit to your sobriety no matter how slim your chances look.
7: Peer Support Is Essential
If you have a loving family and some caring friends, your mental health and addiction treatment will likely be successful, and the professionals may include them in your treatment session as well.
It reflects the necessity of peer support and how it can impact your mental health recovery journey.
Even if your body or brain forces you to submit to these urges, your peers will be there to motivate you, and thus your treatment will be successful in no time.
8: Home Remedy Us Not Going To Work
Whether you suffer from an addiction, a mental health problem, or both, keeping yourself at home, and checking in with your doctor once or twice a week, won’t work.
When you are admitted into a professional detox center, there will be 24*7 help to take care of you. You may begin to feel withdrawal symptoms in the middle of the night, or you may feel a sudden sense of paranoia. Unfortunately, your family is not equipped to support you in these moments.
Therefore, taking professional help from a detox center is mandatory if you want to live the best life.
9: Stress Management Skills Will Help
People fall victim to mental health problems and addiction habits because they cannot cope with their daily life stress as we do.
It does not mean they are not strong enough to put up with the problems life throws at us; they just need a little help.
So, if you are suffering from any one of these problems, learn more healthy ways to cope with stress. It will help you prevent relapse and go a long way to support your life free of mental health and addiction problems.
10: Plan Ahead To Manage Your Triggers
When you come back from the rehab, you must figure out which factors could trigger your urges to do drugs or which factors could trigger your anxiety/depression.
Once you plan to deal with those triggers ahead of time, you avoid the risk of falling victims to their traps once again.
So, figure out your triggers, and find healthy ways to deal with them so that you don’t ever succumb to these problems and emerge victorious in the entire process.
Conclusion
As you can see, the reasons and treatment procedures of an addiction habit or a mental health problem are similar in many degrees.
So, you can find a dual diagnosis treatment approach if you think you have any of these problems.
For further queries, let us know in the comment box. We will get back to you with an answer ASAP.
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