Why Mental Health Disorders and Addiction Should Be Treated Simultaneously

Struggling with substance use disorder (SUD) can be challenging to recover from, and seeking treatment can be scary. These feelings can be intensified if you also struggle with mental health disorders. It is common that these two types of disorders go hand in hand, referred to as a dual diagnosis. Learning how to manage multiple disorders can be overwhelming, but at Healing Pines Recovery, we are here to help.

Our men’s-only treatment facility offers many different types of treatment options for you to explore. These treatment options allow you to work not only on addiction recovery but recovery from mental health issues as well. Improving mental health can play a huge role in the success of your recovery journey. We believe that with a dual diagnosis, you must treat both the mind and the body.

What Is a Dual Diagnosis?

A dual diagnosis is when someone is concurrently struggling with SUD and a mental health disorder. While these types of disorders can commonly occur together, there is no sure way to tell which came first. Researchers believe there are three possibilities as to why mental health disorders and SUD occur together. These three possibilities include the following:

• Common risk factors may contribute to both mental health disorders and SUD
• Mental health disorders can contribute to drug use and SUD
• Substance use and addiction can contribute to the development of a mental health disorder

Research also states that about half of people with a mental health disorder will also have a SUD at some point in their lives, or vice versa. While researchers are still exploring why these two types of disorders often occur together, it is clear that both need to be treated to reach successful long-term recovery.

How an Untreated Mental Health Disorder Can Harm Addiction Recovery

When you are struggling with a mental health disorder, this can impact many different areas of your life. Addiction recovery is not excluded from this. When you don’t treat an issue with your mental health, it can damage your addiction treatment.

Your mental health can impact your recovery in many ways, including causing a negative outlook for yourself and your recovery goals. For example, if you are struggling with depression, it can be difficult to feel motivated in addiction treatment when you are feeling down.

Along with decreasing motivation, having an untreated mental health issue can also cause risks to your addiction recovery, such as the risk of relapse. This can be because you may have used substances as a form of self-medication. When this occurs, you become dependent on the substance to cope with your mental health issue and don’t have the right tools to cope otherwise.

The reverse can also be true, as some people who struggle with addiction have developed mental health disorders in relation to it. Such a disorder can present itself in the early stages of recovery when you have discontinued the use of substances and are now feeling increasingly depressed or anxious due to not being able to self-medicate.

Luckily, there are many options available for treatment, including some that focus on both areas. Finding the proper treatment option for your individual needs is essential since everyone struggles with different types of mental health disorders and SUDs. So, what options are out there?

What Types of Treatment Can Help Mental Health and Addiction Recovery

There are many different options that can help treat mental health disorders and SUD. According to MentalHealth.gov, four dimensions of recovery need to be addressed for successful recovery. These four dimensions include:

• Health: Overcoming or managing one’s disorders and making informed and healthy choices that support physical and emotional well-being
• Home: Having a stable and safe place to live
• Purpose: Engaging in meaningful daily activities, volunteering, or being creative
• Community: Building relationships and social networks that provide support, friendship, love, and hope

At Healing Pines Recovery, we offer different treatment types that can help address these four areas. These include individual treatments like dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), and other holistic approaches.

Treating both mental health disorders and SUDs is our goal at Healing Pines Recovery. We believe that having a healthy mind is important to addiction treatment and long-term recovery.

Learning to handle both a mental health disorder and SUD can feel overwhelming and impossible on your own. Luckily, at Healing Pines Recovery, we are prepared to help you through these challenging times and provide you with the support you need. Through the use of DBT, CBT, and other holistic approaches, we are able to help treat dual diagnoses. We aim to equip you with the tools you need to cope with any mental health issue you may be struggling with and help you achieve long-term success in recovery.

Working through addiction recovery can be difficult on its own, but even more so when you struggle with a mental health disorder at the same time. If a mental health disorder goes untreated, it can greatly impact your recovery. Treating mental health is just as important as treating addiction, and you can not treat just one or the other. At Healing Pines Recovery, we believe that dual diagnosis treatment is crucial to maintain long-term success in recovery. Our goal is to help you recover from substance use disorder and any mental health disorder you may be struggling with. If you identify as male and need support, please reach out to us today at (720) 575-2621.