Sometimes, individuals suffer from addiction and depression simultaneously. Rehabilitation centers for depression and addiction treatment facilities can offer the help people need. Once rehab is over, individuals will continue to need support. But, often enough, the healing process begins with a professional detox program.
What is Depression?
Depression is a medical and mental illness that causes intense feelings of sadness and loss of interest in activities once enjoyed. Common symptoms of depression include feelings of uselessness and hopelessness, pessimism, irritability, trouble concentrating, problems sleeping, and changes in appetite and weight. When someone’s depression gets severe, that person can experience suicidal thoughts, hallucinations, delusions, and reckless behavior.
Types of Depression
There are varying forms of depression. The most common forms of depression include the following:
Major Depressive Disorder
Around 7% of people in the world have major depressive disorder at any given time. Symptoms of major depressive disorder include extreme sadness, lack of energy, irritability, and changes in sleeping patterns for more than two weeks.
Dysthymia
Another common form of depression is dysthymia. Dysthymia is a milder form of depression in which people experience feelings of gloom for more than one or two years.
Seasonal Affective Disorder
When a person only experiences depression during certain seasons of the year, that person has seasonal affective disorder (SAD). Seasonal affective disorder occurs due to variations in sunlight. As a result, people suffer from seasonal affective disorder during the winter.
Symptoms of seasonal affective disorder include overeating, anxiety, mood changes, and sleep issues. To be diagnosed with seasonal affective disorder, you must experience seasonal affective disorder symptoms for more than three consecutive winters.
Atypical Depression
A third common type of depression is atypical depression. The main distinguishing character trait of atypical depression is that people with atypical depression can experience moments of good mood whenever they hear positive news.
Although people with atypical depression sometimes experience moments of positive mood, their low moods are extremely low. So much so that people with atypical depression often feel like life isn’t worth living. Regardless of what form of depression you have or how severe your depression is, there are many rehabilitation centers for depression across the country.
What is Addiction?
Addiction is a disease in which one’s excessive need to consume alcohol and/or drugs to cope with life causes biochemical changes in the brain that, in turn, changes that person’s behaviors. Oftentimes, people that suffer from addiction started drinking and using drugs to cope with an underlying mental or medical illness that they already had.
When someone suffers from both a mental illness and substance use disorder simultaneously, that person has a co-occurring disorder. One mental illness that is highly linked to addiction is depression.
There are varying forms of addiction depending on the substance that a person is addicted to. To treat addiction, one generally has to go through detox and some sort of inpatient or outpatient rehab program.
Detox Treatment for Co-Occurring Depression and Addiction Disorders
If you only receive treatment for depression when you suffer from co-occurring disorders of depression and addiction, you will continue to struggle with substance use. This, in turn, could cause your depression symptoms to arise again or never leave.
Also, receiving treatment for only substance use when you have a co-occurring disorder that includes both addiction and depression will likely not treat the root of your substance use problem, which is the depression. As a result, you will likely relapse or never quit using substances to begin with.
The only way to effectively treat co-occurring disorders is to address both disorders simultaneously. Luckily, doing so is easier than you might think. In fact, studies show that many of the most common drug and alcohol detox treatment medications can improve a person’s depression. Therefore, you can receive medical detox while also treating your depression.
About Detox
Detox itself is the process of letting the human body remove all drugs from its system. Because the bodies of many addicts are used to having drugs in them to function, detoxing often leads to withdrawals. To help manage these withdrawals in a safe environment most detox programs provide constant medical supervision. Detox with constant medical supervision and services is called medical detox. When withdrawal symptoms are severe, medical detox programs will use specific medications to help you manage your withdrawals while detoxing.
If you do not need to receive medication-assisted detox for your addiction, you may be able to take antidepressants to treat your depression while also treating both your depression and addiction throughout your non-medical detox. However, it is NOT advisable to do so without guidance from a medical professional. There are countless individualized co-occurring treatment plans available. They offer varying combinations of detox treatments and therapy that can simultaneously treat both your depression and addiction.
Those struggling with addiction and a depressive disorder can benefit from rehabilitation centers for depression and substance abuse. So it is best to seek professional treatment and guidance when struggling with the effects of this dual diagnosis.
The Process of Detox
The exact process of detox can vary depending on your individual needs. Still, the core process of detox occurs in three main steps. These three steps are evaluation, stabilization, and preparing for treatment entry.
1. Evaluation
In the evaluation step of detox, a medical team will use different assessments to check your medical history and the level of drugs you have in your body. The assessments in the evaluation step of detox will also help the medical team figure out what medications you will need during detox, if any. Any psychiatric needs that you may have will also be determined during this time.
2. Stabilization
The goal of the stabilizing step of detox is to get you to a stable place in your recovery without any harm. It is during this step of detox that different therapeutic practices will be administered to you. It is also during this step of detox that you will receive medications to help you manage your withdrawals if you need it.
3. Preparing for Entry into Treatment
In this step of detox, the medical staff will tell you about your options for the rest of your addiction treatment. Since you only just finished detox, the medical staff may advise you to go to an inpatient rehab next.
Holistic Detox for Co-Occurring Depression and Addiction
This detox approach focuses on finding natural ways to make your body release all the drugs and alcohol from its system. Holistic detox uses tools such as eating healthy and exercising to clean drugs and alcohol out of the body’s system.
One great aspect of holistic detox is its ability to help treat any spiritual, emotional, or mental addiction and/or depression-related issues that a person might have. This is unlike medical drug detox that primarily only takes care of physical issues.
Holistic Detox vs. Medical Detox
Holistic detox differs from medical detox in that holistic detox uses natural, healthy eating, and exercise to help patients release drugs from their bodies. This is unlike medical detox, which often uses medication to help patients wean their bodies off of the substances that they’ve been using.
Holistic detox also differs from medical detox in that holistic detox occurs at a special facility outside of the hospital that focuses on using natural health resources. Medical detox, on the other hand, most often takes place in a hospital setting. As a result, all the tools and resources that help patients in medical detox are high tech and scientific-based.
The fact that medical detox occurs in a hospital-like environment is the reason why medical detox provides patients with 24/7 supervision by medical professionals. Holistic detox, on the other hand, does not provide 24/7 medical supervision.
Another key difference between these two forms of detoxes is that medical detox focuses on getting the body stable. Holistic detox, on the other hand, focuses on getting the mind, body, and soul stable.
If your level of addiction is severe and you have withdrawal symptoms, your addiction level will likely be too high for holistic detox. You also will have to attend medical detox rather than holistic detox if you have an addiction to certain substances.
What Substances Make Medical Detox Necessary?
Due to their high potential for abuse and addiction, addiction to certain substances is too severe to detox holistically. These substances are also too intense and addictive to quit taking them cold turkey on your own. As a result, addiction to the following substances requires medical detox.
Treatment After Detox: Continued Treatment Through Rehabilitation Centers for Depression and Addiction
After detox, you must attend addiction treatment and therapy for your co-occurring disorder of addiction and depression. Detox and rehabilitation centers for depression and substance abuse are certainly necessary for those suffering from co-occurring disorders. The different therapies that you will have to attend include family therapy, individual therapy, and group therapy. Treatment options after detox include residential treatment, inpatient treatment, partial hospitalization treatment, intensive outpatient treatment, and outpatient treatment.
Residential Treatment
Residential treatment (or “inpatient treatment”) is for people that want to live 24/7 at their treatment facility for a long period of time. Inpatient treatment programs are not as strict and rigid as inpatient programs. In fact, residential treatment facilities are somewhat like a housing community.
Partial Hospitalization Treatment
Partial Hospitalization treatment is treatment that occurs all day but then allows you to spend your nights at home. Because partial hospitalization programs are known for being all day, they are also called day treatments. Also, because partial hospitalization programs are all day, you cannot maintain a regular day job while receiving treatment there.
Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP)
Intensive outpatient treatment is structured rehab that occurs for a few hours a day in the evening, three to five days a week. This type of treatment is for people that need to maintain their jobs and responsibilities while receiving treatment.
Outpatient Treatment
Outpatient treatment occurs completely outside of the home. This approach to treatment is for people with milder substance use issues. Patients within outpatient rehab also tend to receive relapse prevention and aftercare.
Detox and Rehabilitation Centers for Depression and Addiction
The detox programs here at Coastal Detox include everything from alcohol detox to regular drug detox, to fentanyl detox, and more. Many of our detox programs also have the necessary components to treat the co-occurring disorder of depression and addiction. For example, alcohol detox can easily turn into alcohol detox for depression with a few adjustments.
On top of countless different detox programs, Coastal Detox also offers a high-quality residential treatment program. This is great, as many people go from detox straight into residential treatment. To learn more about Coastal Detox and our services, contact us today.