Seeing a mental health professional right away is very important if you also have symptoms of bipolar disorder or another mental health condition. Regardless of whether you developed bipolar disorder as a result of substance abuse or became addicted to drugs and alcohol as a result of a bipolar disorder, the treatment you require will start with a dual diagnosis. As is the case with any disease, there are decisions that will make the condition worse. For people with bipolar disorder, drugs and alcohol use are some of these decisions. Bipolar disorder, often called manic depression, is a mood disorder that is characterized by extreme fluctuations in mood from euphoria to severe depression, interspersed with periods of normal mood (i.e., euthymia). Bipolar disorder represents a significant public health problem, which often goes undiagnosed and untreated for lengthy periods.
If you’re affected by both bipolar disorder and alcohol use disorder, there are many pathways to recovery. It may not always be the easiest road, but there are people who are ready to help you navigate it. Dual diagnosis (Also known as a co-occuring disorder) is the term used to describe a person who experiences mental illness and a substance use disorder at the same time.
- The researchers found that patients in the complicated group had a significantly earlier age of onset of bipolar disorder than the other groups.
- About 45 percent of people with bipolar disorder also have alcohol use disorder (AUD), according to a 2013 review.
- Post-hoc analysis showed that acamprosate treatment resulted in lower Clinical Global Impression scores of substance abuse severity in the last two weeks of the trial (Tolliver et al., 2012).
- If a person has psychosis and consumes alcohol, this can lead to both short-term and long-term complications.
Bipolar Disorder and Alcohol Use Disorder: A Review
Thus, if an alcoholic has the choice between taking lithium or drinking alcohol, it is very likely the alcoholic will not be compliant with lithium. Increased medication compliance with valproate may be an important factor in selecting a mood stabilizer for alcoholic bipolar patients. Acamprosate has also been evaluated in an open-label trial and a randomized controlled trial. In a small open-label trial of acamprosate added to a mood regimen in participants with BD and alcohol dependence, acamprosate produced a significant reduction in number of drinks per week, but no differences in mood symptoms when compared to placebo (Tolliver et al., 2009). However, these findings were not replicated in a slightly larger randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial of acamprosate add-on pharmacotherapy in participants with BD and alcohol dependence conducted by the same group (Tolliver et al., 2012).
This can lead to addiction and feelings of depression in the absence of the rewarding substance. However, alcohol can make these feelings and other symptoms worse over time, perpetuating the cycle of alcohol consumption and depression. One study of 421 people found that 25% had both alcohol misuse and depression. If you use drugs and alcohol for a long period of time the mind will become tolerant to the release of dopamine. The brain will no longer produce the same amount and you will need to use drugs and alcohol to receive normal levels of it. Chronic drug and alcohol abuse change the way the brain functions by altering its structure.
Alcohol and Bipolar Disorder: The Risks and Consequences
These individuals also exhibited more pronounced worsening of workplace function following a period of increased problematic alcohol use. Increased manic or hypomanic symptoms after increased alcohol use were more pronounced in BDII than in BDI. Prior literature has linked greater alcohol use to mania or hypomania in BD in combined samples,12,36,37 but these studies did not examine whether these associations differed across subtypes. By conducting this delineated analysis, we provide insights into subtype-specific dynamics of can i have coffee with adderall alcohol use and mania or hypomania. Bipolar disorder and alcohol use disorder represent a significant comorbid population, which is significantly worse than either diagnosis alone in presentation, duration, co-morbidity, cost, suicide rate, and poor response to treatment. They share some common characteristics in relation to genetic background, neuroimaging findings, and some biochemical findings.
Researchers have also proposed that the presence of mania may precipitate or exacerbate alcoholism (Hasin et al. 1985). Integrated treatment can occur either at the programmatic level or at the individual or group patient level. In the programmatic level, as exemplified by the work of Farren et al. (Farren and McElroy, 2008, 2010; Farren et al., 2010), patients enter a comprehensive integrated treatment programme that focuses on both psychiatric illness and substance use disorders. This series of studies on bipolar subjects with alcohol dependence examined the response to an inpatient integrated four-week psychoeducational programme with appropriate individualised pharmacotherapy.
Understanding the Complex Relationship between Bipolar Disorder and Alcohol
A person with bipolar disorder experiences mood swings and other symptoms. Alcohol can affect a person with bipolar disorder differently, compared with someone who does not have it. A person with bipolar disorder can also be more likely than others to misuse alcohol. Research published in 2017 showed treatment with valproate and naltrexone can help people manage bipolar disorder and alcohol addiction. Citicoline is another adjunct treatment option that research suggests is effective for bipolar disorder and cocaine addiction and can also help with improving cognition.
General Health
Addiction is a disease that rewires the brain to increasingly seek out a substance for its pleasurable effects. Chronic drug and alcohol misuse affects parts of your brain involved in regulating emotions, impulsivity, and rational thinking. Bipolar disorder can be hard to manage because of its extreme mood shifts. Partaking in alcohol or other drugs might seem like a reasonable idea at first to mellow out your mood and changing energy levels. It could also feel like a temporary relief against unpleasant symptoms like psychomotor agitation. You’re more likely to have depressive symptoms during withdrawal from alcohol use.
Self-reported race and ethnicity data were collected to enhance the generalizability of the PLS-BD findings to multiple identities. You might want to consider going to the doctor so that they can screen your symptoms since bipolar and substance abuse symptoms can overlap at times. Your doctor could refer you to a mental health professional who can customize your treatment plan to your needs.
This approach may also prove fruitful to refine current nosology of dual diagnosis based on more biologically informed grounds (Frangou, 2014). In sum, the bipolar-addiction comorbidity may benefit from the application of holistic approaches, such as staging and systems biology. These findings also suggest that future neurocognitive studies of BD should take into account the potential confounding effects of comorbid AUDs, including past exposures to psychoactive substances (Savitz et al., 2005). In our opinion, two additional implications for research merit further discussion. Cosci and Fava (2011) have recently proposed an alternative strategy to examine dual diagnosis based on clinimetric methods, helped by staging and evaluation of subclinical symptoms.
It has explored the breath of the association, its complexity, the range of the associations between the disorders, and importantly the range and the limitations of the current knowledge of the psychotherapeutic and pharmacotherapeutic options available to the treating clinician. Unfortunately, the field is marred by a paucity of well-conceived, conducted, and published studies informing the clinician about how to manage a comorbidly diagnosed patient. Despite some ongoing studies, the research field still reflects the current therapeutic field; namely there are few integrated treatment programmes in existence, and even fewer leading to therapeutic guidelines.
