Mood disorders and addiction treatment can often go hand in hand. The reason why this is so frequently observed is due to the rise in the number of cases of people suffering from a dual diagnosis.This may not mean necessarily that more people are developing a dual diagnosis but could also mean that the medical and addiction recovery professionals are getting better at spotting them. A dual diagnosis is said to occur when a person has a mental health problem along with an addiction. The individual may have had the mood disorder prior to their addiction or it may have developed later; either way, mood disorders and addiction treatment will be needed if the person is to make progress and escape the downward spiral that they are sure to be trapped in.
A mood disorder is classified as any disorder that causes a disturbance in a person’s mood; the two most common forms of this are depression and bipolar disorder. Anyone suffering from a mood disorder can quickly find life hard to deal with and this can lead some to turn to alcohol or drugs in an attempt to deal with their negative feelings. This may seem to be working for a while, but in the end the person will have two problems to deal with instead of one. Addiction can have an incredibly destructive impact on a person’s life so in the end the person with a dual diagnosis will need mood disorders and addiction treatment.
Not only can addiction make mood disorders a lot harder to deal with but it can also cause or trigger them to occur in the first place.As addiction destroys a person’s body and mind it will often lead to mental health issues developing such as depression. This all makes life for the addict more difficult and as they deal with the further mental torture associated with their added mental health problem it is likely to lead them further into addiction.This process will go on unabated unless the person receives help in the form of mood disorders and addiction treatment.
The prognosis for somebody with this type of dual diagnosis can be very good so long as both problems are dealt with. Difficulties often occur because the dual diagnosis gets missed and all efforts are put into curing the addiction. The individual, and the recovery services they come in contact with, might be completely unaware of the mood disorder and put all the symptoms down to the addiction or problems with settling into recovery. Many will advise the individual to just stick with recovery and things will get better, but in many instances it won’t get better until the mood disorder is identified and treated. This will mean that many people will relapse in recovery because it just feels too difficult as life is almost as unmanageable as during their addiction. This is a terrible state of affairs because many addicts only have one chance at recovery so it needs to be made the best of.
