If you’re struggling with an addiction to drugs or alcohol, underlying mental health struggles could make it even harder to get sober. These struggles may have existed before your addiction, leading you to self-medicate with drugs or alcohol. If you’re considering inpatient or outpatient addiction recovery services, look for a facility provided by Substance Abuse Treatments 101. They also could have started as a result of addiction or withdrawal, making it more difficult to quit.
If you’re considering inpatient or outpatient addiction recovery services, look for a facility that provides the following benefits from dual diagnosis treatment:
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1. The treatment is more effective than drug or alcohol rehabilitation alone.
Dual diagnosis treatment looks for overlapping symptoms that may occur from both addiction and mental health struggles. The dual program addresses your mental health as one of the main reasons that you might be struggling with addiction, increasing the likelihood that you’ll have the tools you need to stay sober.
2. You’ll gain a comprehensive set of tools to deal with your challenges.
Getting mental health treatment, including medications and therapy, will help you cope with difficult emotions and situations without turning to your substance of choice. You will receive a full psychiatric assessment and care focused on your unique challenges. You’ll receive education on both your addiction and mental health disorder to help you make better sense of your path to recovery.
3. You’ll learn to deal with your triggers better.
You may have some idea of the triggers that lead you to abuse a specific substance. Many of those triggers, like stress and familial problems, are also triggers for mental health disorders like anxiety and depression. This confluence of factors can make it harder to get sober if you don’t also have coping tools for the mental health toll of some of your triggers.
Dual diagnosis treatment will examine your triggers more deeply and help you find other ways to deal with them.
4. You’ll discover a new future.
It can be really hard to imagine a brighter future without substance abuse if mental health issues are keeping you from positive feelings of hope. You might also continue to struggle to maintain a job or go to school without addressing mental health.
Dual diagnosis treatment treats the body and mind holistically through treatments like mediation therapy, art therapy, and nutritional counseling to help you find balance and new interests going forward.
5. You’ll learn you’re not alone.
Especially if you’ve been struggling with mental health and substance abuse for a long time, and you haven’t been able to quit, you might feel like you’re an especially complex and even unredeemable case. Dual diagnosis treatment exists because your situation is normal and common. You will find support in the number of people that are going down a similar path to yours.
Find a Dual Diagnosis Treatment Center Near You
The next step after you’ve decided to pursue dual diagnosis treatment is to contact a treatment center and set up an evaluation. You can easily find these centers online and choose one that feels right for your needs and interests as you pursue sobriety.
