Behavioral and Mental Health

Suffering from addiction is often accompanied by underlying mental illness.

Recovering from one condition often requires recovering others and only comprehensive addiction treatment can achieve it. Phoenix Rehab Campuses offer full behavioral and mental health treatment in every program.

Understanding a Dual Diagnosis

When addiction and another mental illness is present at the same time, it’s known as a dual diagnosis. Co-occurring disorders are mental, behavioral, or health-related and often share similar risk factors with addiction, meaning those with mental health disorders are more susceptible to developing an addiction.

Disorders Can Trigger Each Other

Abusing drugs or alcohol can cause underlying disorders to worsen or new ones to develop. Behavioral and mental health disorders often come with side effects that individuals attempt to mask through substance abuse. For example, someone who chooses to drink solely because they get anxious around others. The alcohol works as a depressant for temporary relaxation, but will worsen the anxiety once the person sobers up.

Substance abuse can trigger mental health and behavioral disorders by altering parts of the brain responsible for regulating emotions and critical thinking skills. Compulsive behavior is commonly developed during substance abuse and can persist even after recovery.

Which Mental Health Disorders Are Common With Addiction?

The presence of certain mental illnesses is more common in those struggling with addiction than others. The common denominator is usually how substance abuse interacts with the central nervous system. When a mental illness shares a similar impact with addiction, the two diseases are more likely to co-occur.

Mental health issues, such as depression, are often met with self-medication through drugs or alcohol.

Other commonly co-occurring disorders include:

  • Anxiety
  • PTSD
  • Schizophrenia
  • Bipolar disorder
  • OCD
  • Eating disorders
  • Anxiety
  • PTSD
  • Bipolar disorder
  • Schizophrenia
  • OCD
  • Eating disorders

How Is a Dual Diagnosis Treated?

Treating a dual diagnosis requires multiple types of therapy and treatment for effectiveness. The most impactful approach to a dual diagnosis is cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), which helps return the brain’s thought patterns to how they were prior to addiction.

CBT is such an effective form of therapy because of its usefulness in identifying addictive behaviors and tendencies that fueled the addiction’s development in the first place. It’s common for these behaviors to also relate to an underlying mental health disorder, meaning both disorders are addressed with the same therapy.

Additional therapies are used to help those with suicidal thoughts or social struggles, as these are common forces behind substance abuse and often lead to relapse if not helped during treatment. The ability to live comfortably and make new relationships is fundamental to maintaining sobriety and avoiding relapse.

The team at Phoenix Rehab Campuses is here to help every guest achieve a sober lifestyle by completing a treatment program. Anyone who needs help to overcome addiction is encouraged to reach out to the team today for a private consultation.