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Drug and Alcohol Treatment Centers


Comorbidity: The Basics

Drug rehab centers don’t just treat addiction. Although, that is their primary focus, in many cases, the addiction can’t be properly treated without addressing other health concerns, specifically mental ones. Experts call two or more disorders that occur in the same person “comorbid.”

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, people with mood and anxiety disorders are approximately twice as likely to be addicted to drugs when compared with the general population. The reverse is also true. Therefore, drug rehab centers have to be prepared to deal with co-occurring disorders.

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Why Is Comorbidity So Common?

A lot of people want to make this a chicken or the egg situation and to try to determine which came first. It’s often not possible.

In some instances, drug abuse can exacerbate or cause an existing mental illness. For example, some people who use stimulants develop a form of psychosis that mirrors the symptoms of schizophrenia.

On the other hand, people may turn to drugs to cope with the symptoms of mental illness. A person may self-medicate an anxiety disorder by abusing marijuana.

Diagnosis

A professional drug rehab center will evaluate patients before a treatment plan is developed an instituted and one of the things they are assessing is the possibility of a comorbid disorder. This is done using a broad approach with a greater chance of success.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse cautions that diagnosis can be difficult because of the overlap between the symptoms of withdrawal (like insomnia and agitation) and those of a possible comorbid disorder. So, patients are often observed closely through their initial period of detox to differentiate between the two.

Treatment

More and more, experts argue that all conditions should be treated simultaneously because they all impact one another and concurrent treatment can control one negatively impacting the treatment of another. The most common treatments are medication and behavioral therapy, usually in conjunction.

Drug rehab centers may produce treatment plans that surprise patients who arrived unaware they have a dual diagnosis.

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