Drug Treatment & Drug Rehabilitation
If You or Someone You Love Suffers from Drug Addiction, Call our Drug Treatment Hotline Now
1-800-370-9520
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Is drug addiction a mental illness? The answer is “yes”. However, the illness varies in seriousness and intensity depending on the type of drug being abused and the length of the abuse. Any addiction changes the brain in fundamental ways: it can disrupt a person’s normal hierarchy of needs and desires, resulting in behaviors that override the ability to control impulses—including the drive to acquire more of the drug despite the negative consequences. To treat the addiction, The Ark uses a dual diagnosis approach, but what does that mean? The symptoms of drug addiction are all clear signs of any kind of mental illnesses.
This fact presents the dual problem of drug dependency and a mental disorder. But which came first? Did the drug addiction result from a person’s attempt to self-medicate? Or did the mental disorder follow years of substance abuse? Many people who regularly abuse drugs are also diagnosed with mental disorders and vice versa. This is why the Ark’s approach is to treat both addiction and any underlying mental disorders—whether they led to addiction or resulted from it—simultaneously. This dual or multi-diagnosis approach is one key to our success in treating clients here at the Ark.
Substances and Abuse
What substances are we talking about? Certainly, alcohol is a drug (although disguised as a beverage), and experts often refer to the category as “alcohol and other drugs.” There are countless “drugs” that occur in nature including tobacco, marijuana and peyote that man has been helping self to for generations. The fact is, the list is endless and can include naturally occurring drugs to man-made drugs, both legal and illegal, as well as chemical substances from glue to aerosols and everything in between.
Most abused drugs are generally either depressants or stimulants, but there are also adaptogens like nicotine and a variety of psychotic drugs like LSD. At the Ark, our concern isn’t so much WHAT our clients have been taking, but rather WHY and HOW we can treat the underlying reason and help them free themselves from the slavery we call addiction.