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Treatment of Addiction and Dual Diagnosis

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From the category archives:

Dual Diagnosis

Alcoholism and Addiction Treatment

Dual Recovery Anonymous

There are many stages during the recovery process which can begin with identifying an addiction problem and learning about the various treatment options available.

We have compiled a broad range of recovery options to help visitors find the treatment that best suits their needs. These include: self evaluation, intervention services, recovery programs, mental health practitioners, detoxification, inpatient/outpatient, online treatment, message boards & chat rooms, outdoor therapy, retreats, sober housing and youth services.

12-Step Programs – Twelve-step programs have long been an important part of the recovery process and the basis for many recovery programs. Developed over 65 years ago by a small group of alcoholics, the AA program provides simple tools for living based on a set of spiritual principles and a reliance on the fellowship of men and women who share their experience and offer their support as part of a lifelong process of recovery. This approach has since been adapted for the treatment of many other addictions, and now includes other self-supporting fellowships such as CA and NA.

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) (alcoholics-anonymous.org)
A twelve-step program for people in recovery from alcohol abuse. The site provides an online list of central offices and groups in the U.S. and Canada, meeting contact information, a description of the 12-steps and traditions, a listing of AA literature and a bulletin board.

Dual Recovery Anonymous (DRA)
Dual Recovery Anonymous™ is an independent, nonprofessional, twelve step, self-help fellowship organization for people with a dual diagnosis. Our goal is to help men and women who experience a dual illness. We are chemically dependent and we are also affected by an emotional or psychiatric illness. Both illnesses affect us in all areas of our lives; physically, psychologically, socially, and spiritually.

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What is Dual Diagnosis?

Dual diagnosis occurs when an individual is suffering with both chemical dependency and a psychiatric or emotional illness. These illnesses can damage a person physically, socially, and psychologically, and thus interfere with normal functioning. The dual disorders may affect each other, and each disorder predisposes relapse in the other disease. At times the symptoms can overlap and even mask each other, making treatment and diagnosis difficult. To fully recover, a person needs treatment in both disorders equally and simultaneously.

Other names for this type of illness are:

  • Co-morbid disorders
  • Co-occurring disorders
  • Concurrent disorders
  • Co-morbidity
  • Dual disorders

Dual diagnosis can be difficult to identify. Many of the symptoms of drug abuse (such as extreme anxiety, depression, paranoia, delusions and hallucinations) are similar to those of mental illness. Many of the effects on one’s life (severe decline in self-care and functioning) may also be similar. Often, one problem is blamed on the other.

Substance abuse complicates almost every aspect of care for a person with a mental illness. Mental health professionals and families of the mentally ill may underestimate the amount of drugs and/or alcohol dependency among people in their care. There may be several reasons for this:

People with a mental illness may abuse drugs or alcohol covertly. It may be difficult to separate the behaviors due to mental illness from those due to chemical dependency. It takes time to unravel the interacting effects of substance abuse and mental illness

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Bipolar Disorder in Teens

May 19, 2008

Bipolar Disorder (also know as manic depression) often reveals itself in teens as severe moodiness and unhappiness. Often the first diagnosis is one of depression. Frequently bipolar disorder is initially misdiagnosed. It can take time to properly diagnos bipolar disorder. Treatment includes a combination of carefully monitored medication and professional counseling.
Bipolar disorder manifests differently [...]

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Bipolar Disorder, AKA Manic Depression

March 21, 2008

Bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression, is a mental disease that causes severe shifts in a person’s mood. The ups and downs experienced from a bipolar disorder are much different from the normal mood changes everyone goes through. These emotional extremes can result in damage to a person’s degree of daily functioning.
Bipolar [...]

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Dual Diagnosis Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Substance Abuse Treatment Conclusion

February 25, 2008

For substance abuse patients, and therapy in general, the effectiveness of treatment is determined as much by the therapist as by any theoretical orientation or patient characteristics. With this dual-diagnosis population, it is often difficult to provide effective therapy. Therapist processes emphasized in Seeking Safety include compassion for patients’ experiences; using coping skills; giving [...]

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Dual Diagnosis PTSD and Substance Abuse Treatments and Issues / Part 4

February 24, 2008

A third study of a hundred inner-city outpatient women compared Seeking Safety with relapse prevention treatment (RPT), both in individual format, with a treatment-as-usual (TAU) control condition in a randomized controlled trial (Hien, Cohen, Litt, Miele and Capstick). At the end of treatment, patients in both Seeking Safety and RPT had significant reductions in substance [...]

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Dual Diagnosis PTSD and Substance Abuse Treatments and Issues / Part 3

February 23, 2008

Stephanie Covington has created a trauma specific model for women as well in 2003. In the introduction to her program, Covington (2003) discusses the integrated treatment approach focusing on women. “The connection between addiction and trauma for women is intricate and not easily disentangled” (p. 16). She goes on to discuss that the treatment provider [...]

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Dual Diagnosis PTSD and Substance Abuse Treatments and Issues / Part 2

February 22, 2008

Programs other than ‘Seeking Safety’ have been introduced, but few have any research backing. The ATRIUM Model, Addiction, Trauma, Recovery — Integrated Model, was introduced in 2001 by Dusty Miller and Laurie Guidy. They contended that twelve sessions of treatment per week running to 1.5 hours at a time, structured according to their treatment [...]

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Dual Diagnosis PTSD and Substance Abuse Treatments and Issues

February 21, 2008

Najavits et al (1997), identify treatment as crucial, “not only because of the prevalence and severity of co-occurring PTSD and substance abuse, but also because treatments that are typically used for PTSD or substance abuse alone may be insufficient for their combination”. Problems of using treatments suited to one or other of the disorders with [...]

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Dual Diagnosis Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Substance Abuse / Part 3

February 20, 2008

Although early research on PTSD and substance abuse focused almost exclusively on male combat veterans whose substance abuse was connected to war trauma (Keane and Wolfe, 1990), research has expanded its focus to now include review of the clinical profile of women with PTSD and substance abuse issues (Najavits et al, 1997). Evidence indicates that [...]

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