Which Should We Treat First: Mental Illness or Addiction?

Substance use can alter behaviors, moods, and personalities so severely for people with addiction that without specialized knowledge and experience, it’s difficult to determine underlying causes such as mental illness or trauma.

I credit psychological intervention for pushing me into recovery from alcoholism.

Addiction is a mental illness, but is it one that needs to be treated before anything else? Or should we be stopping people from hitting their addiction bottom and helping them recover from their comorbid conditions concurrently?

What Is Addiction?

Before we can discuss treatment, we need to understand what addiction is and how it is defined. The two major guidelines for diagnosing mental health conditions around the world are the DSM and the ICD. The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) is the standard diagnostic tool for mental health conditions in the United States and often used in North America. The ICD (International Classification of Diseases) is endorsed by the World Health Organization and often used in Europe.

In the DSM-5, substance abuse and substance dependence are combined under the same name of substance use disorder, which is diagnosed on a continuum. Each substance has its own sub-category, but behavioral addiction is also in the DSM-5, with gambling disorder listed as a diagnosable condition. Other similar entries, such as internet gaming disorder, are listed as needing further research before being formally added as a diagnosis. In the ICD-11 there is a subset of mood disorders called “substance-induced mood disorders,” which are conditions caused by substance use. To qualify for this category, one must not have experienced the mood disorder symptoms prior to substance use.

Hypothetically, a person who has alcohol-induced mood disorder might find health with abstinence alone, but substance use disorders do not occur in a vacuum and no one can go through the experience of addiction without it altering their mind and body, sometimes irreversibly. With enough time, substance-induced disorders change the function of the brain and alter emotion regulation. That doesn’t mean that addiction will cause another mental disorder; addiction is a mental disorder.

Not everyone with an addiction is concurrently experiencing another mental disorder. Substance use can alter behaviors, moods, and personalities so severely for people who are addicted that without specialized knowledge and experience, it’s difficult to determine what, if any, underlying cause is responsible for the changes. Drugs, even those that are prescribed and used as directed, can have side effects that seem to mimic the symptoms of other diagnosable conditions. These effects can also appear if a person is in withdrawal. Because of this inability to isolate co-occurring conditions, there was a time when it was popular for doctors and clinicians to first treat substance use disorders before exploring the possibility of other mental illnesses.

That is no longer considered the best approach to care…

So, what is considered the best approach then? Keep reading for more information about therapy to recognize addiction, integrated treatment, the consequences of discriminating against people with substance abuse disorder, and more over at the original article Addiction or Mental Illness: Which Should You Treat First? at The Fix.

from World of Psychology https://psychcentral.com/blog/which-should-we-treat-first-mental-illness-or-addiction/