Mental health concerns and substance use disorders often co-occur. It’s not always clear which begins first, but programs that offer residential treatment in Montana understand that treating one without addressing the other doesn’t work.
Two conditions that often appear together are alcohol use disorder (AUD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). These conditions can severely impact your life, damaging your health, career, and relationships. If you are struggling with these co-occurring disorders, it’s vital to get help. Learn more about the connection between PTSD and alcohol misuse and how you can break free from both.
Understanding PTSD
PTSD is a mental health condition caused by experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event.¹ The majority of people who go through traumatic events may struggle for a little while but then move past it. However, those who develop PTSD are not able to go through the process of healing, and instead, the memory remains an open psychological wound.
The symptoms of PTSD are varied.¹ Some of them can include:
- Irritability
- Nightmares and flashbacks
- Avoiding reminders of the event
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Feeling detached from others
- Self-destructive behavior
- Concentration problems
- Hypervigilance
Anyone can develop PTSD, but certain risk factors increase your chances of experiencing it. These risk factors include having family members who also have PTSD or other mental health concerns and having certain brain chemical imbalances. People who struggle to regulate their responses to stress have a much higher risk of suffering from PTSD. The severity of the traumatic experiences also plays a role.
The Connection Between PTSD and Alcohol Abuse
People with PTSD experience such severe symptoms that they may turn to alcohol to cope. At first, it might appear as though alcohol does help a bit because it can improve your mood in the short term and even have a sedating effect. Those benefits quickly wear off, however, leaving you with worse PTSD symptoms.
Continuous alcohol use diminishes your body’s ability to manage stress. It prompts the release of higher amounts of cortisol, which is a stress hormone.² This makes structural changes to your brain and impacts how you react when something triggers you.
Alcohol misuse affects people who don’t have mental health concerns, putting them at risk of developing anxiety and depression because of these imbalances. If you have a mental health concern like PTSD, the outcome can be even worse because a structural issue already exists.
At the same time, the high levels of cortisol that alcohol prompts your body to produce impact the brain’s reward and pleasure centers. This reinforces the need to drink.
As PTSD symptoms get worse because of the further imbalances alcohol causes, your brain encourages you to keep drinking to feel better. It becomes a vicious cycle that can be very difficult to escape.
But can alcohol lead to the development of PTSD? Alcohol can increase your chances of experiencing traumatic experiences. Engaging in binge drinking, for example, can lead to loss of consciousness, which puts you at risk of all manner of traumatic events.
Because alcohol dependence causes structural changes in the brain, it can also make you more susceptible to developing PTSD. Even if the traumatic event you live through or witness isn’t directly caused by alcohol, the disordered way your body reacts to it could be.
Treating PTSD and Alcohol Addiction at A Residential Treatment in Montana
To effectively manage alcohol addiction and PTSD, they have to be treated simultaneously. These conditions feed off one another, so only tackling one at a time won’t provide the support you need. That’s why it’s vital to choose a dual-diagnosis treatment program that can offer targeted care for both conditions at the same time.
Behavioral Therapies
To address PTSD and alcohol misuse, behavioral therapies are essential. Options like cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) provide the chance to get to the root cause of the problem. CBT helps you achieve a deep understanding of the negative thought patterns that impact your moods and actions. Once you identify the harmful patterns that lead you to rely on alcohol, you can start making positive changes.
At the same time, this therapy can help you process the traumatic event and offers coping strategies that help you manage stress more effectively.
A related therapy option that treatment programs often use is dialectical behavior therapy, which is a variation of CBT that encourages you to accept yourself and your circumstances as they are and without judgment. At the same time, it teaches you to strive to make positive changes. It’s a good option for people who struggle with emotional regulation, which is common with alcohol use disorders and PTSD.
To address the traumatic memory of the event that caused PTSD, a good option is eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, which shows you how to transform the memory that triggers such powerful stress responses into a more normal one that you can heal from. By using bilateral brain processing, you can accomplish this in a more manageable way than exposure therapy.¹
Group Therapy at A Residential Treatment in Montana
Group support is vital for the treatment of both PTSD and alcohol use disorder. Speaking with people who have lived through traumatic experiences helps you understand that you are not alone, and participating in 12-step programs and other similar options provides the community support you need to remain sober.
Medications
In some cases, antidepressants and other types of medications can help significantly. They can assist you by managing symptoms so that you can better participate in talk therapy sessions. Many programs offer medication-assisted treatment for those with substance use disorders because you can experience fewer cravings and avoid the severe withdrawal symptoms that can make recovery much more difficult.
Begin a Residential Treatment in Montana
If you’re struggling under the weight of an alcohol use disorder and PTSD, a residential treatment center can offer the support you need. You can step away from your regular life and focus wholly on healing.
At Bear Creek Wellness, we provide traditional, evidence-based therapies such as CBT and trauma-informed care options. What makes us different is that we offer all our services at a location immersed in nature. You can learn to better manage your emotions and process difficult memories while enjoying the serene landscapes of Montana.
You don’t have to struggle through another day without support. Contact us at Bear Creek Wellness to speak with one of our experts about the right treatment options.
Sources:
[1] https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/ptsd/what-is-ptsd
[2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2266962/
Andrea was born and raised in Spokane Washington, she moved to Montana with her husband in 2015. Andrea has been in the field of counseling since 2009. As a licensed addiction counselor, she worked primarily in addiction until 2018 when she completed her master’s degree in marriage and family therapy and became a license clinical professional counselor and a licensed marriage and family therapist. Andrea has worked with diverse populations and found her calling working with individuals and couples struggling with substance use and its relational
impact. With a passion for recovery and healing families, Andrea has built a private practice in Missoula, MT and serves various populations. Andrea’s love for people and her desire to engage with, and promote, internal healing has fostered a truly unique role aiding individualized journeys in recovery. In her spare time, she enjoys her beautiful property west of Missoula with nature at her front and back doors. Her greatest joy in life is spending time with her granddaughter and breaking the cycle of addiction in her own family.
