Dual Diagnosis is it real?
Many drug addicts or alcoholics have been said to have both an Alcohol or drug problem and an emotional/psychiatric problem is said to have a dual diagnosis. To recover fully, the person needs Treatment for both problems. Common sense will tell you that anyone who needs drugs or alcohol as a means to deal with life must have an underlying mental emotional problem that preceded the Addiction or came about as a result of substance abuse or Drug Addiction. A co-occurring disorder and a dual diagnosis enters into the chicken or the egg theory as studies have shown that substance abuse and drug addiction affect the function of the brain and the chemical neurotransmitters for at least 90 days from the cessation of drug or alcohol abuse. So any assessment or dual diagnosis given during that period of time would be based on the fact the brain is not functioning correctly as it normally and to be treated with more drugs, antidepressants or anti-anxiety drugs would only add to the inability to discover what is really going on with the drug or alcohol addict. Alcohol causes depression and anxiety so to say someone has depression is like saying the sky is blue, of course they do and choosing the correct form of treatment for that is very important.
Dual Diagnosis- False claims of commonality.
Dual diagnosis claims is more common than you might imagine. According to a report published by the Journal of the American Medical Association Thirty-seven percent of alcohol abusers and fifty-three percent of drug abusers also have at least one serious mental illness. The thing that should be considered is, is it really an illness or is it just an effect of the drug? Some medications actually cause pneumonia, a physical illness, and all drugs are toxic. These dual diagnosis claims lead one down the path of further misconception and lies based on profit. Anytime you add a chemical to a human body its going to alter the functionality and upset the normal flow of things and take a while to adjust. These falsehoods and deceptions are geared towards promoting the use of more mind altering addictive drugs that we here at Addiction watch deal with after the fact. Many drug addicts who have sought Substance Abuse treatment or Drug Rehabilitation come out of treatment with a prescription of drugs that far exceed the original addiction. You can and should learn more about the real facts on dual diagnosis and co-occurring disorders.
Dual Diagnosis and Co-occurring disorders
The following psychiatric problems are common to occur with a dual diagnosis - i.e., in tandem with alcohol or drug dependency.
- Dual Diagnosis such or Depressive disorders, such as depression and bipolar disorder.
- Or dual diagnosis problems associated with vitamin or nutritional deficiencies like Anxiety disorders, including generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and phobias.
- Other dual diagnosis psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia and personality disorders that have yet to have the origin determined.
We do not advocate dual diagnosis or the use of psychiatric drugs for the treatment of people with Drug and Alcohol abuse problems. We agree that many people who abuse drugs and or alcohol have underlying issues that must be addressed in order to gain the ability to confront life but we believe that these issues are falsely promoted as dual diagnosis and must be confronted with the help of professionals using holistic treatment methods to increase the persons ability to solve their problems without the use of mind altering chemicals. Dual Diagnosis and Psychiatric Diagnoses are based upon two words (Chemical Imbalance) the following article explains the Myth of Chemical Imbalance.
Dual Diagnosis and The myth of chemical imbalance:
Although each of the SSRI manufacturers admit they do not know how their respective drugs for dual diagnosis work, each claim that they help to correct a chemical imbalance of the brain. The assumption for each of these drugs is that if a person is depressed (each and every depressed person), they have a reduced number of neurotransmitters in the brain called serotonin, and this theoretically is caused by drug addiction and substance abuse giving one the idea there is a dual diagnosis but its impossible to know, it’s a lie.
As one well-known psychiatrist put it: "[SSRIs] are not correcting a biochemical imbalance, these drugs create severe imbalances in the brain. ... The idea that human suffering, psychological suffering, is biochemical is strictly a promotional campaign, perhaps the most successful in the history of the world, created by the drug companies. We do not even have a technology, a scientific technology, for measuring what happens inside the brain ... it is literally a fabrication."
The next time you see a Zoloft, Prozac, or Paxil commercial, watch carefully. You will see that, when the drug company explains that depression is a serious medical illness caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, it will be prefaced with the word "May" i.e., "depression may be caused by a biochemical imbalance in the brain." These leads an addict who has feelings of hopelessness and despair and whose life is in shambles and is drug seeking are led to believe they are suffering a dual diagnosis.
They must preface this statement with "may" because this theory has not been scientifically established. This unproven theory has been propagated by the pharmaceutical industry in order to sell psychotropic (mind-altering) drugs as a means to treat dual diagnosis.
In May 2003, GlaxoSmithKline ("GSK"), the maker of Paxil, announced in Ireland (The Irish Times, Saturday May 10, 2003) that it was withdrawing claims contained in Paxil (called Seroxat in Ireland and the UK) brochures that the drug worked by normalizing the levels of serotonin. GSK was forced to acknowledge that the link between depression and serotonin levels is unproven and that its claims "were not consistent with the scientific literature."
If your doctor tells you that these drugs will correct an imbalance in your brain chemicals and you have a dual diagnosis, please realize that more than likely your doctor got this from drug company representatives as part of the drug companies' marketing activities. There is no scientific evidence to support such a statement. Just because you are depressed does not mean that there is something wrong with your brain chemicals and in fact you have a co-occurring disorder and need a dual diagnosis.
"The claim is continually made that the drugs repair chemical imbalances in the brain. This claim is false. It is still not possible to measure the exact levels of neurotransmitters in specific synapses within the human brain. How, then, is it possible to make claims about chemical imbalances?" - Philip Owen, psychologist "Sad script for the stressed," Daily Telegraph (Sydney, Australia) Letters to the Editor, 2 Sept. 2003.
"Contrary to what is often claimed, no biochemical, anatomical, or functional signs have been found that reliably distinguish the brains of mental patients." - Elliot S. Valenstien, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Michigan, in his book Blaming the Brain: The Truth About Drugs and Mental Health (The Free Press, New York, 1998), p. 125."...there are no external validating criteria for psychiatric diagnoses. There is neither a blood test nor specific anatomic lesions for any major psychiatric disorder." - From a letter dated December 4, 1998 by Loren R. Mosher, M.D., a psychiatrist, resigning from the American Psychiatric Association.
"A disease is a condition that has a known cause and can be identified by one or another set of laboratory tests." - Miryam Ehrlich Williamson, Fibromyalgia: A Comprehensive Approach, 2000, Chapter 1.
"We really do not know what causes any psychiatric illness." - Jack M. Gorman, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University, in his book The Essential Guide to Psychiatric Drugs - Third Edition (St. Martin's Press, New York, 1997).
AddictionWatch Counselors would be remiss if we did not give you the above data about dual diagnosis and the following links for any further information on psychiatric drugs www.breggin.com and www.drugawareness.org
AddictionWatch.com
When in need of substance abuse treatment or looking for the right Addiction Treatment center, it is important to consider all the facets of drug addiction or substance abuse and realize there Drug Rehab programs out there that do not necessarily have the best interest of you or you’re loved at heart.
Most substance abuse Treatment Centers offer one of four types of drug or Alcohol Rehabilitation programs that vary in cost, length and most importantly success. These programs offer many different kinds of treatment for the recovery of addicts, like inpatient treatment, outpatient Rehab, detox facilities, and sober living homes. Inpatient addiction treatment is generally designed for addicts who require more intensive treatment from their addictions where they will reside with supervision and counseling from certified addiction treatment professionals.
Outpatient addiction treatment is usually for those addicts who have less severe addictions and might achieve success in a drug rehabilitation program with a few addiction counseling sessions a week for several hours, then return home at the end of the day. Detox is the first step in recovering from addiction to alcohol and benzodiazepines and offered at some addiction treatment centers, but only those with medical equipment and staff on hand to handle the safe detoxification of addicts in a comfortable environment.
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