Comorbid drug abuse refers to the existence of substance abuse alongside another mental health problem.This is believed to be a huge issue for society with no exact figure about how many people are affected; it is claimed that about half of those with a mental health problem will also have an addiction problem during their lifetime.
The person with this type of double problem is often referred to as having a dual diagnosis; a drug or alcohol problem alongside another mental health problem such as; depression, personality disorder, or schizophrenia. The fact that a person has both of these difficulties makes treating either one all the more difficult; in fact the only real hope for the individual is that both problems are dealt with together.
The big problem with dealing with somebody with comorbid drug abuse is that it can be particularly difficult to get the individual to agree to accept help.A symptom that is closely associated with addiction is denial, and it is this that keeps many people trapped in their suffering. They just fail to appreciate how their addiction is destroying their own life and impacting those around them. Many addicts will eventually reach a stage where it is impossible to deny what is going on and they will be willing to get help, but for many people with comorbid drug abuse this realisation might never occur. The reason for this is that a mental health problem will often affect a person’s thinking and in some case it becomes a real challenge for this person to gain any type of insight about their condition. A few years ago this type of individual would have been considered a hopeless case, but now thanks to the availability of treatment options that tackle both conditions simultaneously there is real hope of recovery.
Comorbid drug abuse most often occurs due to two possible reasons. In some instances it was the mental health issue that drove the person to addiction in the first place. Their initial experiments with alcohol or drugs would have likely helped them deal with the worst of their symptoms, but now a few years later this substances that once eased their plight is now making everything a lot worse; they might not see this of course. Another explanation for the dual diagnosis is that it was addiction that has led to the mental health problems being triggered or caused. Drugs and alcohol can give the body and mind a very bad beating so it is little wonder that mental health issues arise.
The treatment for anyone with comorbid drug abuse must take into account both conditions if it is to be successful. Failure to treat the mental health problem will make recovery from substance abuse impossible in many cases and hard to bear in others. In many cases you will be only drying the person out to where they were before they felt the need to escape into addiction; for this reason treating both problems really is important for most people.
