How to Treat Substance Abuse & Mental Disorder

The co-existence of drug abuse and mental illness is an example of what's called comorbidity, which can make it very difficult to tell which factor causes the other. This is largely because diagnostics is so difficult. Withdrawal symptoms from a drug can perfectly mimic mental illness, and the basic behavior of a drug addict also mimics the symptoms of mental illness. Hence, treatments as of this writing are still ad hoc. What we do know is that people with depressive or anxious disorders are two times as likely to develop a drug habit as more stable people.

Instructions

• 1

  Diagnose the existence of comorbidity with great care. The patient should be observed for a substantial period of time to make certain symptoms of withdrawal are not confused for a longer-lasting mental illness.

• 2

  Use medications along with cognitive techniques if comorbidity is suspected. Drug abuse or mental illness alone is difficult to handle; both together require the disciplines to use all the skills they have to make certain neither set of symptoms relapses.

• 3

  Interview family and friends to try and discern what symptoms occurred first. Does the patient have a long history of depression before the drug abuse? Or did the drug abuse trigger later depressive or anxious disorders? This judgment must be made before any course of treatment is undertaken.

• 4

  Use anti-psychotics such as Seroquel for a cross-symptom, short-term cure. Seroquel has proven effective for drug withdrawal as well as depression and anxiety. Hence, certain of the atypical medications can be used to treat both sets of symptoms and can be a great help in treatment.

• 5

  Integrate treatment as a matter of course. Even if the diagnostics is tricky, it might be worthwhile to maintain an integrated mental health/drug abuse approach to treatment regardless.

  Though depressed people are more likely to use drugs, drug users are more likely to develop these symptoms. These are co-symptomatic and should be treated as a unit, regardless of the nature of the diagnostics.

  At present, these two areas are separate. Increasing integration can assist in solving the problems as a single unit, which is the ideal. It may be wise to merely assume that any drug addict has mental problems and, alternatively, that any person with mental illness is at risk for drug-seeking behavior.