Today, research is indicating that when treatment for drug and alcohol
addiction is given to a patient it must include the treatment of mental disorders. This is because of the co-occurrences of these two issues
and means is not possible to treat the addictions without treating the
mental illnesses. A co-occurring disorder is diagnosed when at least
one disorder can be found independent of the other one and the symptoms
are not all resulting from just one disorder.
The term co-occurring when referring to disorders has replaced the
recent terms dual diagnosis and dual disorder. The two latter terms are
referring to the combination of mental disorders and substance abuse.
This can sometimes be confusing in that it can also refer to other
disorder combination's.
A co-occurrence is a link or dependency between an addiction and a
mental disorder. A dual diagnosis is confirmed when a patient has an
addiction to drugs or alcohol, plus has one of the following problems:
Over half of adults who suffer from a mental illness are even further
impaired by dependence that is related to alcohol or drugs. Patients
who have dual disorders many times experience more chronic and severe
social, medical and emotional issues when compared to patients who
suffer from just one mental disorder. When someone is suffering from
two different disorders, they are at risk of the psychiatric disorder
getting worse.
Both mental illnesses and drug use disorders are caused by the
overlapping factors such as genetic vulnerabilities, deficits, and / or
the early exposure to trauma or stress. There are some mental disorders
that are risk factors for the abuse of drugs and the other way around.
Dual diagnosis has become very common but can be a challenge to treat.
Addiction to alcohol, drugs and nicotine is typically found in those
with a variety of mental illnesses. Some of these can include bipolar
and unipolar depression, schizophrenia, anxiety disorders and other
personality disorders. Data states that between 2 and five of every 10
depressed or anxious people and between 4 and 8 people with bipolar,
schizophrenia or antisocial personality as have some sort of addiction.