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It’s quite normal for someone entering alcohol treatment to show signs of depression. The sad and hopeless feelings that are associated with alcohol dependence tend to be a driving force behind the disease. Major depression can also be a co-occurring disorder with alcoholism, which adds a need for mental health treatment.

In these cases, the problem with providing effective treatment is discovering which disorder is primary in each new patient. It’s much like the chicken-and-egg syndrome of which came first. It is important to know if the mental health disorder brought on alcohol dependence, or if drinking behaviors led to a downward spiral of hopelessness and despair.

Psychological assessments are taken on patients in alcohol treatment at Tarzana Treatment Centers as part of our commitment to integrated behavioral healthcare. In many cases, this is completed before the patient discharges from alcohol detox. This gives our counselors and mental health professionals the ability to prepare treatment plans that target both disorders, with emphasis on the primary one.

The excerpt below is from an article posted on the Addiction Technology Transfer Network website. The full article reviews the latest studies on major depression and alcohol dependence along with information from previous studies. It includes some information that may be of interest to those with alcoholism in the family.

If you or a loved one is in need of alcohol treatment, please call us at 888-777-8565 or contact us here.

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Major depression (MD) and alcohol dependence (AD) co-occur in individuals and within families at higher rates than expected by chance. This study looked at how mood-related drinking motives may explain the overlapping familial risk for MD and AD. Findings suggest that individuals with strong mood-related drinking motives, especially those based on negative feelings, may be vulnerable to developing both MD and AD.

Results will be published in the August issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research and are currently available at Early View.

“Although the frequent co-occurrence of AD and MD is widely recognized, the association between the disorders works differently for different people,” explained Kelly Young-Wolff, whose master’s thesis provided the stimulus for the study. “There are likely multiple mechanisms that result in the disorders co-occurring, for example, having MD increases the risk to develop AD, having AD increases the risk to develop MD; and causal factors – such as genetic risk or social circumstances – also contribute to developing both disorders.”

— Source: http://www.attcnetwork.org/explore/priorityareas/science/tools/asmeDetails.asp?ID=615 —

Tarzana Treatment Centers in Los Angeles makes a daily effort to find treatment news articles that we can share with our readers in the alcohol and drug treatment community. The external content was found among other articles of equal informational and educational quality.

Southern California Locations for Alcohol and Drug Treatment
Tarzana Treatment Centers has locations all over Southern California in Los Angeles County and Orange County. Other than our central location in Tarzana, we have facilities in Lancaster in the Antelope Valley, Long Beach, in Northridge and Reseda in the San Fernando Valley, and in Santa Ana.