Drug and Alcohol Rehab

Drug addiction and alcoholism are often used interchangeably under the umbrella of addiction but they are not the same. Someone who needs treatment needs to be properly evaluated and diagnosed with one or both disorders. Someone who has both alcoholism and drug addiction may be referred to as an alcoholic-addict, dually addicted or having dual addiction. This is not to be confused with dual-diagnosis, which is the term for two co-occurring disorders such as an alcoholism in conjunction with a mental health issue such as depression or bi-polar disorder. Someone who is dually addicted requires treatment found at a drug and alcohol rehab.

One of the major components during drug and alcohol rehab for a person with dual addiction is the detox phase. The nature in which alcohol works on the Central Nervous System (CNS) dictates that alcohol nearly always requires detoxification in order to avoid the potential of convulsion or seizure; whereas some drugs require detox and others do not. The detox protocol must be closely monitored and administered to insure both addictions are properly and simultaneously cleansed from the body. Dually addicted patients are more likely to drop out of treatment and have poorer results than patients who abuse only one substance. Medical research conducted on dually addicted patients will address the needs of the overwhelming number of Americans who abuse both alcohol and illicit drugs. More than 2.4 million of the 5.6 million people who abused illicit drugs in 2001 also abused alcohol, according to the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse. In fact, the more heavily someone abused alcohol, the more likely he or she was to use illegal drugs, the survey found. In 2001, nearly two of every three American teenagers, ages 13 to 17, who engaged in frequent drinking binges also abused drugs. In comparison, only 1 in 20 young people who didn’t drink at all used drugs. The treatment and rehabilitation process is similar for addicts suffering from both alcoholism and drug addiction. Addicts who suffer from both diseases are treated with the same modalities as someone with one or the other disease. The differences between rehab and treatment for someone with both alcoholism and drug addiction would primarily be making the dually addicted person acutely aware they have both concerns and address both forms of the disease concurrently and accordingly. While the perceived benefits of combining alcohol and drugs may play a big part in the high percentages of people who do so, the addictive effects and harmful consequences of both substances increase when they are used together.