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Can My Teen Be Treated For Drug Addiction and Depression At The Same Time

Can My Teen get Treatment for Drug Addiction and Depression at the Same Time?

Drug addiction and alcohol abuse can cause mental illnesses. As for mental illnesses causing addiction, it’s always a case of how long the illness has existed. Where mental problems are not diagnosed and treated quickly, the user may get into drugs and alcohol.  

Depression causes discomfort. Affected persons experience overwhelming sadness, numbness, isolation, hopelessness, and sleep and eating disorders. If medication doesn’t appear to be working, these people will seek to self-medicate.

That’s when they try the first few drinks or rounds of cocaine… and it works. The symptoms are gone and they feel much better… though only temporarily. And that’s where the problem lies. As soon as the chemical leaves the body, this person is likely to experience even greater depression. This is also known as withdrawal depression and often triggers use of more alcohol and drugs to free the mind of the bad feelings.

Then there is the complexity of administering medication to a person who uses drugs and alcohol, which have the potential to either strengthen or weaken the medication, which may put the affected person’s life in danger.

Treatment Strategies

Of course both depression and drug addiction are treatable, but how? Well, it is usually critical to identify which came first. Well trained psychotherapists are able to trace the depression to its roots to determine what exactly caused it and how long it has existed. This helps them determine whether or not it existed before the addiction. They can use reports from family, friends, and teachers or employ a psycho-social evaluation to elicit this information.

If the teen is found to have experienced depression way before he or she started on drugs and alcohol, they will need medical intervention for a long period of time. Where the depression started after the addiction, and is therefore thought to have been triggered by the alcohol or drugs, the teen will undergo a wholly different treatment plan.

Parents are therefore expected to play their role in narrating experiences and observations to the doctors so that it becomes possible to identify which problem started first and when.

Please call Visions Adolescent Teen Treatment centers on 866-889-3665 to schedule your consultation for treatment for drug addiction and depression.

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