Dual Diagnosis Treatment Center
About half of people with a substance use disorder have a dual diagnosis, also known as co-occurring disorders. This means they have a mental health disorder as well as suffering with substance abuse.
Dual diagnosis treatment is the most effective way to address both conditions. At a dual diagnosis treatment center, you receive comprehensive care that helps you manage both your addiction and your mental health disorder. This type of treatment can be lifesaving for people who struggle with both conditions.
What Is Dual Diagnosis?
If you struggle with addiction and at least one mental health disorder at the same time, you have a dual diagnosis. Sometimes it’s hard to determine which came first: the mental health disorder or addiction. People with mental health issues sometimes use substance abuse, eating disorders, or other destructive behaviors to cope with symptoms of:
- Depressive disorders
- Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Anxiety disorders
- Bipolar disorder
- Personality disorders
- Other psychiatric disorders
![brain and addiction](https://www.voguerecoverycenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Signs.png)
On the other hand, regular substance abuse can change the brain. These changes affect chemicals tied to:
- Mood
- Motivation
- Emotional regulation
- Other important functions
When this happens, you can experience psychiatric symptoms, even if you didn’t already have a mental health disorder.
Common co-occurring disorders with addiction include:
Mood Disorders
Mood disorders include:
- Depression
- Bipolar disorder, and dysthymia commonly co-occur with addictive behavior.
Anxiety
Common co-occurring anxiety disorders include:
- Generalized anxiety disorder
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
- Phobias
- Panic disorder
- Social anxiety
Personality Disorders
High-risk personality disorders include:
- Borderline personality disorder
- Antisocial personality disorder
Eating Disorders
People who have eating disorders may use food to feel a sense of control or self-medicate symptoms of depression, anxiety, and other mental health disorders.
Other Mental Health Conditions
People with alcohol and drug addictions sometimes have psychiatric disorders such as:
- Schizoaffective disorder
- Schizophrenia
- Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
Dual Diagnosis Statistics and Facts
Co-occurring disorders and dual diagnoses are prevalent among people with behavioral health issues. Various studies have found:
- 65% to 90% of people with personality disorders have substance use disorders.
- 15% of people with an anxiety disorder have a substance use disorder, and 33% to 43% of people in treatment for addiction have an anxiety disorder.
- 40% to 70% of people with bipolar disorder have a co-occurring alcohol use disorder.
- About one-third of people with major depressive disorder also have a substance use disorder.
- Around 50% of people with an eating disorder struggle with drug abuse or alcohol addiction.
- People with dual diagnoses account for a disproportionate number of admissions to hospitals, emergency rooms, and jails.
- People with dual diagnoses are more likely to have a poorer prognosis and experience more relapses than those who only have one disorder.
- Co-occurring disorders are often not properly treated, which can lead to serious consequences, such as job loss, homelessness, and suicide.
Signs You Need Dual Diagnosis Treatment
Some symptoms of mental health conditions and addiction can be similar. Only a psychiatric or medical professional can diagnose your symptoms and determine the best way to treat them. Symptoms of a dual diagnosis vary by individual and type of addiction and mental health disorder, but they generally include:
- Changes in behaviors
- Social avoidance or fear
- Difficulty thinking or concentrating
- Feeling the need for drugs or alcohol to feel normal
- Excessive sadness
- Changes in personal hygiene and sleep
- Impulsivity
- Poor performance and/or excessive absences at work or school
- Unrealistic and intense concern with weight and appearance
- Sudden changes in sex drive
- Financial issues
- Increased hunger or lack of appetite
- Extreme mood changes
- Intense anger
- Using drugs or alcohol despite negative effects on life
- Withdrawal symptoms without alcohol or drugs
- Difficulty relating to others
- Frequent and multiple physical pains
- Suicidal thoughts
- Visual, sensory, or auditory hallucinations
If you are experiencing one or more of these symptoms, get a consultation from a medical or addiction professional.
What Does Self-Medication Mean?
When you have a mental health disorder, it’s tempting to self-medicate with alcohol or drugs. After all, if you feel depressed, anxious, or stressed, drinking or using drugs can seem like an easy way to make those feelings go away. But self-medicating is never a good idea. It can make your mental health problems worse.
Self-Medicating Can Intensify Existing Mental Health Issues
When you self-medicate, you’re not actually treating your mental health disorder. You’re just numbing the symptoms. When the effects of the alcohol or drugs wear off, your symptoms will come back—and they might be even worse than before. The effects of self-medicating with substance abuse are short-lived. This leads you to use more and more of the substance to achieve the same level of relief.
Mental health symptoms can act as triggers for drugs and alcohol. For example, someone with anxiety may drink alcohol to try to calm their nerves, only to find it amplifies their anxiety.
Substances can also lead to changes in brain chemistry that worsen mental health disorders. For example, chronic alcohol use has been linked to changes in the brain that contribute to depression.
Self-Medicating Can Interfere with Treatment
If you’re trying to treat your mental health disorder with medication or therapy, self-medicating can interfere with that treatment and make it less effective. That’s because alcohol and drugs can interact with your medications in dangerous ways. They can also make it harder for you to focus on therapy and follow your treatment plan.
Self-Medicating Is Dangerous
Self-medicating is dangerous because it can interact with mental health medications in potentially dangerous ways. For example, drinking alcohol while taking antidepressants can cause blackouts, vomiting, and seizures. Mixing drugs like Xanax and Adderall can also be deadly. Not only can these interactions be dangerous, but they can also make mental health problems worse.
Self-Medicating Can Lead to Addiction
When you use substances to cope with mental illness, you’re more likely than the general population to develop an addiction. This is because substances change the brain in ways that make it difficult to stop using them. Self-medication can lead to dependency and addiction, which can further intensify mental health issues. Once you’re addicted, you may have difficulty functioning without drugs or alcohol. You may continue using them despite negative consequences like job loss or financial ruin.
Self-Medicating Can Stop You from Getting Better
Self-medicating can prevent you from getting the professional help you need to recover from mental illness. When you rely on substances to cope, you’re less likely to seek out therapy or medication that could help you feel better in the long run. This keeps the cycle of self-medicating and addiction going.
Why Is it Important to Treat Addiction and Mental Health Together?
Although substance abuse and mental illness often co-occur, addiction has not been found to cause mental illness directly. Still, addiction and substance abuse can cause changes in the brain that may trigger the development of mental illness or exacerbate an existing mental illness. And some mental illnesses change the brain in a way that makes you more sensitive to the rewarding effects of substances.
People with mental illnesses are at an increased risk of developing a substance use disorder for a few reasons:
- Many people attempt to self-medicate their mental illness with drugs or alcohol.
- Effective treatment of some mental illnesses varies between individuals. In some circumstances, certain medications may worsen mental illness, putting you at higher risk for substance abuse.
When mental health disorders and addiction are treated separately, it can cause a couple of issues:
- If you only receive treatment for either alcohol or drug abuse, you are very likely to relapse quickly. The trigger is your untreated mental illness. You will feel a need to self-medicate your symptoms with drugs and alcohol like you did before treatment.
- When you don’t receive integrated treatment for mental health disorders and substance abuse, your treatment providers may not be on the same page. If you treat the conditions separately at different facilities or years apart, they may not have access to each other’s medical treatments and may not adequately address your needs.
It is always important to seek help if you have mental health disorder symptoms. One of the most common obstacles to people getting dual diagnosis help is denial. Often, mental illness can cause thoughts and beliefs that are not rooted in reality. This increases the risk of denial and keeps you from taking steps to care for yourself.
Without dual diagnosis treatment, the cycle of mental illness and substance abuse never ends. Substance abuse and mental health disorders can feed off each other. It’s important to attend a co-occurring disorder treatment program so you can get care for both issues at the same time. Otherwise, addiction becomes a circular problem. You use drugs or alcohol to medicate mental health symptoms, or your addiction causes mental health symptoms.
Dual diagnosis treatment provides:
Improved Outcomes
When addiction and mental health disorders are treated together, outcomes are improved. Integrated treatment has been shown to decrease the overall severity of both disorders and the risk of relapse. Additionally, those who receive integrated care are more likely to stick with treatment and see lasting results.
Decreased Stigma
Integrated treatment helps to decrease the stigma associated with addiction and mental health disorders. When these disorders are treated together, people see them as the chronic medical conditions that they are. They understand that they require ongoing care and management. By breaking down the barriers between addiction and mental health care, integrated treatment makes it easier for people to get the help they need without feeling ashamed or embarrassed.
Increased Access to Care
Integrated care also increases access to care for those who need it. By bringing addiction and mental health services together under one roof, more people can get the help they need in a single location.
If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction and mental health issues, you are not alone. There is help available. Integrated treatment is an effective way to address both disorders simultaneously—and it can make all the difference in achieving lasting recovery.
How Do You Treat Dual Diagnosis?
Today, most substance abuse treatment programs provide dual diagnosis treatment. Dual diagnosis treatment means that both your mental illness and substance use disorder are treated at the same time. At Vogue Recovery Center your addiction and mental health treatment program will be tailored to your specific needs, but your care may include:
Drug and Alcohol Detox
Residential Treatment
Addiction programs where you live at the treatment facility are called residential treatment programs or inpatient rehab. You attend programming during the day and participate in recovery activities in the evenings. These may include 12-step meetings, groups, and sober socializing like games or recreation. At Vogue Recovery Center, living arrangements are home-like and welcoming.
Inpatient rehab may include:
- Individual therapy
- Group therapy
- Family therapy
- Mental health and addiction therapies
- Trauma therapies
- Holistic approaches
- Dual diagnosis treatment
- Relapse-prevention skills training
- Outings
- Medication management
- 12-step groups or 12-step alternatives like SMART Recovery
- Peer support
- Aftercare planning
Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP)
In a partial hospitalization program, you attend a full day of treatment at a treatment center but live at home or in a sober-living residence The day schedule and types of treatments are like residential treatment. The main difference is where you live.
Partial hospitalization may include:
- Individual therapy
- Group therapy
- Behavioral therapies
- Relapse prevention skills
- Holistic approaches
- Medication management
- Dual diagnosis treatment
- Aftercare planning
Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP)
As you become more confident in your sobriety, you’ll move into our intensive outpatient program (IOP). You can live at home or in a sober living residence and attend groups and individual sessions during the week on a lesser scale. At the IOP level, you’ll likely return to work or look for employment as part of your treatment goal. You may also be able to return home and work through triggers with the IOP staff. They understand this transition and watch for signs of relapse. You’ll eventually move from our intensive outpatient program into outpatient treatment that meets just one to three hours a week.
IOPs meet for 10 to 15 hours a week and may include:
- Individual therapy
- Group therapy
- Medication management
- Addiction education
- Relapse-prevention skills
Outpatient Treatment
The last step in a structured addiction program is outpatient treatment. At this level of care, you are fully integrated back into your everyday routine. You’ll attend treatment programming at a facility like Vogue Recovery Center just one to three hours a week. Outpatient treatment serves as a weekly check-in where you can process triggers you’re encountering and strengthen relapse-prevention skills.
Outpatient treatment may include:
- Group therapy
- Individual therapy as needed
- Addiction education and resources
Psychiatric Treatment
Medications may be appropriate to treat mental illness symptoms. They can reduce the risk of relapsing because you’ll feel less of a pull to self-medicate symptoms. Some of the most common medications prescribed for mental illness in a dual diagnosis include:
- Antidepressants
- Anti-anxiety medications
- Antipsychotics
- Anticonvulsants
With medications, the risk of substance abuse is significantly reduced. The reasons they are effective:
- The medication treating the symptoms of mental illness eliminates the discomfort and pain that prompts many to self-medicate with drugs or alcohol.
- In addiction rehab centers, patients learn appropriate medication management, along with healthy lifestyle choices and tools to avoid relapse in the future.
Aftercare
Aftercare is a crucial phase in the treatment process. Your treatment team and peers will be a source of positive support in transitioning back into everyday life. You may return home, but some people find a sober living residence is better for their sobriety. Your case manager and individual therapist will create an aftercare plan to support your recovery after treatment. This may include:
- Individual therapy
- Psychiatry appointments
- Medication management
- Medication-assisted treatment (MAT)
- 12-step groups or 12-step alternatives
- Nutrition and fitness programs
What Is a Dual Diagnosis Treatment Center Like?
A dual diagnosis treatment center is a facility that specializes in treating patients with both substance abuse disorders and mental health disorders. These facilities are equipped to provide comprehensive care that addresses both types of disorders at the same time.
Patients who receive treatment at a dual diagnosis treatment facility like Vogue Recovery Center participate in a variety of therapies and activities designed to help them recover from their disorders. Some of the most common types of therapies and activities offered at these centers include:
- Individual therapy
- Group therapy
- Family therapy
- 12-step programs and 12-step alternatives
- Holistic therapies
- Psychiatric appointments
- Medication management
Individual Therapy
One of the most important aspects of treatment at a dual diagnosis treatment center is individual therapy. You speak one-on-one with a trained therapist about your experiences with substance abuse and mental illness. Individual therapy sessions provide you with an opportunity to share feelings, thoughts, and emotions in a safe and supportive environment.
Group Therapy
In addition to individual therapy, most dual diagnosis treatment centers also offer group therapy sessions. You meet with other people who are struggling with similar issues and share experiences. Group therapy can be an incredibly powerful tool for recovery because it allows you to realize you’re not alone in your struggle. It can also provide you with valuable insights into your challenges that you may not have been able to see.
Family Therapy
Family therapy gives you the chance to work through issues with the support of loved ones. Family therapy sessions can improve communication within families and help families develop a better understanding of what their loved ones are going through.
12-Step Programs
Many dual diagnosis treatment centers also offer 12-step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) or Narcotics Anonymous (NA). These are structured programs to follow as you recover from addiction. Twelve-step programs also offer the opportunity to connect with other people who are in recovery, which can be an invaluable source of support during this difficult time. If you don’t relate to the 12 Steps, alternative groups are available, like SMART Recovery.
Holistic Therapies
In addition to traditional forms of therapy, many dual diagnosis treatment centers also offer holistic therapies such as yoga, meditation, and acupuncture. These therapies can help you relax and find peace during your recovery journey. Holistic therapies can also help promote healing physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Medication Management
A dual diagnosis treatment facility like Vogue Recovery Center has a team of medical professionals who work together to create an individualized treatment plan for you. This treatment plan considers your unique needs and the specific medications you’re taking. Medication management is an important part of treatment at a dual diagnosis treatment center, as it can help stabilize symptoms and improve overall functioning. The team at a dual diagnosis treatment center will closely monitor your progress and adjust your medication regimen as needed. In addition, they will provide education and support regarding their medication use.
Accommodations
Dual diagnosis treatment centers provide safe, supportive environments. The facilities are typically equipped with common spaces, like lounges and kitchens, as well as private or semi-private rooms. Amenities, such as televisions, fitness centers, and game rooms, are often available to residents. Treatment takes place during the day at the treatment center. If you’re in residential rehab, you retire to apartments or dorm-style residences in the evening.
Why Should You Choose a Dual Diagnosis Treatment Center?
If you or a loved one are struggling with addiction, you may be wondering whether a dual diagnosis treatment center is the right choice. Here are four reasons it might be:
- Comprehensive care: At a dual diagnosis treatment center, you receive comprehensive care for both your addiction and your mental illness. This means you have access to both individual and group therapy, as well as medication management if needed. This comprehensive approach ensures all your needs are met so you can recover from both your addiction and your mental illness.
- Experienced staff: The staff at a dual diagnosis treatment facility like Vogue Recovery Center is experienced in treating both addiction and mental illness. This means they understand how the two disorders interact and how to best treat both disorders simultaneously. You can rest assured you’re in good hands when you choose a dual diagnosis treatment center.
- Individualized treatment: At a dual diagnosis treatment center, your care is individualized to meet your specific needs. This means your treatment plan is tailored to you so you can get the most out of your time in treatment. The psychiatric team addresses your mental health diagnosis, and the addiction team works with them to ensure your treatment plan considers this. You won’t have to worry about fitting into a one-size-fits-all program.
- Continued support: A dual diagnosis treatment center provides you with continued support after you leave treatment. This means you’ll have access to alumni programs, sober living housing, and other resources that can help you stay on track after treatment. You’ll have continued support from those who understand what you’re going through.
Ready to Get Help with Your Co-Occurring Disorders?
Vogue Recovery Center offers evidence-based dual diagnosis treatment. Our addiction and mental health treatment programs are effective and engaging, with treatment plans tailored to your unique needs and life experiences. We have seen countless clients take back their lives from mental health disorders and substance abuse. You can do it too.
We are in-network with several insurances and accept most major plans. Call us today to learn more about our recovery program. We will provide you with a free consultation and work directly with your insurance company to determine your addiction treatment coverage.
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