How to Help a Drug Addict Who Suffers From Mental Illness
Very informative blog regarding co-occurring disorder treatment! – T Brown
Drug addiction can strike anyone at any time. Unfortunately, sometimes that includes people with mental illness.
When someone is dealing with mental illness and drug addiction, it’s called a co-occurring disorder or dual diagnosis.
This disorder is especially hard to treat because of the positive correlation between mental illness and addictive substances.
Drug use often exacerbates mental illness, making the underlying cause of addiction harder to treat.
The further someone falls into drugs, the worse their mental illness becomes, which leads to more drugs and more mental symptoms. It’s a vicious cycle.
Understanding how to help a drug addict who also has a mental illness takes patience and persistence.
Why The Correlation?
Drug addiction in mental illness patients stems from two different scenarios.
The first is the need to self-medicate. People suffering from depression, anxiety, neuroses, insomnia, schizophrenia, etc., use drugs to feel “normal.”
Taking cocaine, for instance, could take you from feeling depressed to feeling like the king of the world.
Problems with self-medication arise from tolerance and dependence. The more substance they take, the higher the tolerance they build, and the cycle of increasing their dosage grows stronger.
Our second scenario occurs when substance abuse causes an underlying mental illness to surface.
A mixture of substance, environment, and genetics can trigger deep lying problems that weren’t originally apparent. Many times the new mental illness takes the person off guard, and they continue to use their substance to self-medicate.
It’s no surprise that 50 percent of individuals with severe mental disorders also abuse addictive substances.
How to Help a Drug Addict With Mental Illness
Treating an addict with a co-occurring disorder isn’t the same as treating strictly drug addiction.
People suffering from mental illness often aren’t equipped to handle the confrontation and emotional stress of traditional drug counseling.
What’s more, giving psychotherapeutic medications to control mental illness is discouraged when the patient presents a dual diagnosis. All of the conventional therapies to treat drug addiction and mental illness essentially get thrown out the window.
Instead, the best strategy is focusing on both disorders at the same time. Specifically, acknowledging which disorder triggered the other.
Encourage the patient to admit that they’re facing two problems. This means hearing the words, “I am an addict,” and “I have depression, anxiety, etc.”
After the person has come to this conclusion, let them speak. You don’t want to trigger the mental illness by digging for their emotions. Let the emotions come naturally.
Many times inpatient therapy is the best option for dual diagnosis patients. Staying in a treatment center can cut the drugs out of their life.
This isolates the mental illness as the only immediate issue, and lets co-treatment progress in steps.
Your end goal is to identify if drugs cause mental illness, or if the mental illness causes the drug use. Knowing which came first allows us to offer dual treatment, but with a specific focus on the underlying trigger.
Understanding how to help a drug addict with a mental disorder takes special knowledge. Treating those with a dual diagnosis differs greatly from usual addiction treatment.
If you’re involved with someone suffering from mental illness and drug addiction, get in contact with our facility.
Our staff has many years dealing first hand with co-occurring disorders.
Reviewed and Assessed by
Taylor Brown, B.A.Com., MAADC II
Tim Coleman, M. of Ed.
Start Your Recovery Now!
Have A Midwest Recovery Centers' Team Member Call You Today.
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Staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Medical
Midwest Recovery Centers believes strongly in a client-centered approach. Substance Use Disorder is not what it was 5 or even 2 years ago. The substances on the street are constantly changing and so are the number of contraindications and fatal threats that substance use imposes on the person suffering. Our Medical team continues to stay up to speed with new advances of evidence-based approaches in treating those with both substance use disorder as well as their co-occurring mental health diagnosis. There are many varying pieces to each client’s situation when it comes to tackling the puzzle of a medical detox, and each step in the treatment planning is carefully selected, reviewed, and communicated for the best possible outcome of each client. We understand that consideration of the medical history, family history, past trauma, past and current substance use are all key indicators to most effectively give each client the best chance at developing a recovery process. Each client may present with a different scope of medical needs whether it’s their blood work or the most effective medications for them. Midwest Recovery Centers is proud to have the finest medical team to meet these individual and specific needs of each client that walks through our doors.
Clinical
When it comes to the therapeutic treatment of patients with substance use disorder, Midwest Recovery Centers believes in a client-centered approach guided by evidence-based practices. Substance use disorder has been identified by the American Medical Association as a disease, but because addiction is a disease that impacts behavior, treatment of this disease is often heavily focused on modifying behaviors and thoughts as well as establishing a new way of life. We place a strong emphasis on educating patients about this chronic illness and empowering them to practice treating it as such. Our clinical team is composed of leading experts in the field. We believe in having a staff as diverse as the clients we serve; from Licensed Professional Counselors to Licensed Clinical Social Workers, our staff is highly trained and educated in not only addiction but the mental health issues and life circumstances that often accompany it. Many of our clinicians have their own personal experience in long term recovery which lends them to an even better understanding of what our patients are experiencing. Our staff is highly skilled in choosing the most effective therapeutic modality for each client’s needs, to give them the best chance of securing the recovery process that will change their lives. Our clinical team understands that this is a family disease. This is why clinicians will offer weekly updates to families as well as concrete tools for families to utilize as they journey through this illness with their loved one. Those tools will be offered by the patient’s individual clinician as well as at our free Family Night on the first Wednesday of each month, offered to anyone in the community.
Our Origin Story
I began Midwest Recovery in honor of my mother, Betty Lou Wallace, who taught me responsibility in life and sobriety.
Mom was born, raised, and lived most of her life in Missouri, a state I'm still proud to call home. She had five children. The youngest were my older brother Don and me.
We knew that the disease of addiction ran in the family, but it wasn't until Don and I grew older that we realized we were falling into addictive patterns. Through it all, Mom was supportive of her children but firm about one principle: whether the disease was inherited or developed through your environment, you were responsible for your recovery from addiction.
"I will be supportive of your recovery but I will not enable your addiction," she was fond of saying.
Ultimately, I stayed sober from 1990 to 1997, when I relapsed. With Mom's support, I was able to get sober again in 2002. Tragically, Don was not so lucky. He passed away in 2005 from complications of an injury and continued addiction.
Mom wanted no parent to suffer from the sorrow and anguish of losing a child, so in 2002, she helped me establish my first treatment center business.
As Mom grew older, she shared with me some lessons she had learned through her affiliation with Al-Anon, a support group for family members of loved ones struggling with addiction. She asked me to stay clean and sober one day at a time and to use the lessons I learned in my own recovery to help others who were suffering.
In 2008, Mom passed away from throat cancer, one day after my six year sober anniversary. I still remember that one of the last times we spoke, she told me she was proud of my recovery.
Mom would be so happy to know that myself, our partners, and our team are carrying on her legacy in her home state. I don't know if my own recovery process would be intact without her and the lessons she shared. So much of what we share with our clients at Midwest began with Betty Lou.
Above all, Mom imparted several teachings that I carry with me every day: that people are inherently good, and if they fall into addiction, this makes them sick, not bad. She taught me to be patient, tolerant, loving, and kind to myself and to others.
Most of all, she taught me that recovery works if we are able to be honest with ourselves about our own behavior. That’s what she helped me accomplish and that’s what we strive to accomplish with every Midwest client.
On behalf of Betty Lou, I thank you for your interest in Midwest Recovery.
Jeff Howard
Start Your Recovery Now!
Have A Midwest Recovery Centers' Team Member Call You Today.
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Self-care is a cornerstone of successful long-term recovery from substance abuse. It involves adopting practices that promote physical, emotional, and mental well-being, helping individuals manage stress and maintain sobriety.
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The stigma surrounding substance abuse is a significant barrier to seeking treatment. Many individuals delay getting help because of fear, shame, or judgment.
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