Addiction and dual diagnosis conditions are often associated with each other because they so commonly occur together. This has led an entire field of addiction experts to conclude that one must naturally cause the other, resulting in an entire new way of viewing addiction as anything but an independent disease. Instead, there are many experts and even treatment centers that incorrectly assume that co-occurring conditions such as bipolar disorder or PTSD must actually cause addiction and therefore treating the cause will also cause the disease. However, this is simply not accurate because addiction is an independent neurological disease that occurs with and without other conditions and regardless of whether other conditions are treated or not. So while one condition might exacerbate the other, they must be understood and treated as separate conditions in order to properly address issued caused by each.

The trouble with addiction and dual diagnosis conditions is that addiction and alcoholism often mask the symptoms of these co-occurring conditions. Therefore many go undiagnosed and later lead to complications in a recovery program because the issues that are not being treated are often self-medicated by the sufferer by returning to drug use. Both conditions must be treated simultaneously in order to have the best chance for success. Theories that you can simply treat the "underlying" condition such as depression and that the addiction will go away are inherently flawed. This is because addiction is an actual progressive neurological disease that must be treated using a variety of different therapies and medication- all of which are administered independently of any other conditions.

Dual diagnosis conditions are usually discovered during individual therapy sessions that allow a patient to explore the causes and underlying concepts that cause them to abuse drugs or alcohol. It is usually during these sessions that a clinician will observe signs and symptoms that a co-occurring condition is present and develop a plan to treat these issues where necessary.

The most common dual diagnosis conditions are:

Bipolar Disorder - This is a condition that is noted by the inability of the sufferer to maintain interpersonal relationships and often leads to or exacerbates other conditions as noted below.

Panic Disorder - People suffering from this condition are unable to deal with stress correctly and can severely overreact to situations that intimidate them.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder - This disease is characterized by uncontrollable obsessions such as excess hand-washing and the practice of repetitive and irrational rituals.

Depression - This condition has a number of symptoms that differ greatly from person to person and many people self-medicate depression symptoms by using drugs or alcohol.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD occurs after a person has been through a severely stressful or traumatic event, especially violence, sexual assault, or the death of a loved one.

If you feel like you have a condition that has caused you to use alcohol or drugs or you have an addiction and fear a co-occurring condition, you can pick up the phone right now for a free consultation about what steps you can take to protect yourself and get the right treatment at the right time.