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PTSD
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PTSD
Behavioral Healthcare Treatment
PTSD Treatment
Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, develops after the experience of an event that’s scary, dangerous, life-threatening, or shocking. When someone has PTSD, they’re at a greater risk of other mental health disorders, including addiction.
When PTSD and addiction occur together, they require a specialized treatment approach known as dual diagnosis.
Centric Behavioral Health is an addiction treatment center with dual diagnosis programs, including PTSD treatment. At our PTSD rehab center, clients participate in programming on an inpatient or outpatient basis. When both PTSD and addiction are simultaneously treated, it reduces the risk of relapse.
Treatment Options
Understanding PTSD
It’s normal to feel fear when you’re experiencing a traumatic event and for a short time after. Our fear is part of what’s known as our fight or flight response, which is a natural way to avoid danger or respond appropriately when facing it.
After a traumatic experience, people can have different reactions. Most people will recover from the traumatic experience with time, but if someone continues to have related symptoms, they may be diagnosed with PTSD.
After World War I, the condition was referred to as shell shock. Following World War II, it was also called combat fatigue, but it doesn’t just affect military members.
Anyone can develop this mental health disorder, including people who have experienced abuse, assault, combat, disasters, accidents, or other serious events. Someone with PTSD will feel fear and stress even if they aren’t in danger.
There are instances where a person develops PTSD without experiencing the dangerous event first-hand. Around six in 100 people will at some point experience PTSD, with women being more likely to develop it than men.
Specific risk factors for PTSD include:
- Limited social support after the event
- Being hurt or seeing people hurt or killed
- Exposure to previous trauma, especially during childhood
- Feeling helplessness, horror, or intense fear
- Having a lot of stress after the event happens
- Family or personal history of mental health disorders or substance use
Centric Behavioral Health is a PTSD rehab center in Florida, offering focused dual diagnosis treatment for mental health conditions that co-occur with addiction.
We work with most major insurance carriers.
Centric Behavioral Health facilities work with most major health insurance carriers in order to provide effective, accessible treatment options for substance abuse and mental health.
What Are the Symptoms of PTSD?
The symptoms of PTSD are grouped into four categories, and these can vary as far as how severe they are and the extent of their impact.
The first group of symptoms is described as an intrusion. Intrusive thoughts are repeated and involuntary memories, distressing dreams, or flashbacks. When you have PTSD and experience flashbacks, it’s vivid to the point that you feel like the traumatic event is happening again or you see it before your eyes.
Avoidance is the next category of symptoms. Symptoms related to avoidance include trying to avoid reminders of the traumatic event, including people, places, and things that could trigger distressing feelings or memories. Avoidance symptoms of PTSD can also include not talking about the event.
The third category of symptoms is changes in cognition and mood. These symptoms can include the inability to remember details of the traumatic event and distortions in thinking about oneself or others.
The fourth symptoms category includes changes in arousal and reactivity. A person with PTSD might be angry or irritable, behave self-destructively, showcase reckless behaviors, be overly vigilant, or be easily startled. They could also have problems with sleeping and concentration.
Most people experiencing a traumatic event will have symptoms like the ones above for days or weeks after it happens. For a diagnosis of PTSD, symptoms have to be ongoing for over a month and cause significant problems in functioning and distress.
At our Florida PTSD treatment center, we work with clients to treat their underlying trauma-related symptoms while they receive comprehensive treatment for a substance use disorder. Co-occurring PTSD treatment in Florida is available inpatient or outpatient at Centric Behavioral Health.
PTSD and Substance Use
When someone has PTSD, the effects on brain chemistry and function are similar to those of substance abuse and addiction. The disorders can appear at the same time as one another, and one untreated often worsens the other condition. It’s also possible that one of the conditions came before the other. The same trauma that led to PTSD can also contribute to developing a substance use disorder.
When you experience trauma, your brain will produce fewer endorphins. These are the chemicals that make us feel happy. Someone with PTSD might use drugs or alcohol to try and increase their endorphin levels, leading to addiction and dependence over time.
The use of drugs and alcohol can also happen if someone with PTSD is trying to self-medicate their symptoms, feelings, or sense of isolation.
Symptoms of addiction can include:
- Being unable to stop using alcohol or drugs even though they’re causing negative effects.
- A desire to stop using or cut back but being unsuccessful in doing so.
- Withdrawal symptoms when cutting back or stopping.
- Prioritizing drugs or alcohol above other things, including school, work, and relationships.
- Being secretive or deceptive about substance use.
- Developing a tolerance and requiring larger amounts of the substance to feel the same effects.
Centric Behavioral Health offers PTSD treatment in Florida and rehab programs for addiction in a safe, understanding, and compassionate environment.
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Treating Addiction and PTSD
Many treatment approaches for addiction are similar to those for treating PTSD. For example, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) can help develop coping mechanisms for painful memories and change thoughts and behaviors surrounding substance use.
Certain medications might be used to treat symptoms of PTSD, like anxiety or depression. There are also medication-approved treatments for alcohol and opioid use disorders.
A continuum-of-care approach often works well in treating co-occurring disorders. First, someone begins with an intensive, high level of care, such as inpatient rehab. At our center offering PTSD treatment in Florida, we follow the continuum of care model. Then, once someone has completed an intensive treatment program, they gradually move into lower levels of care as they’re ready.
Contact Centric Today to Learn More
If you were to receive treatment for just addiction and not underlying PTSD, it’s much likelier to experience a relapse after treatment.
If you’d like to learn more about dual diagnosis PTSD treatment in Florida, contact the team at Centric Behavioral Health today. If you are looking for mental health or addiction treatment services in Florida or near you, Centric Behavioral Health Can help. If you’d like to learn more about our inpatient drug rehab centers, contact us today.
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Centric Behavioral Health is dedicated to helping others. Our mission is to connect those who contact us with our trusted treatment programs around the country. Contact us today to learn more about our expert programs and how we can help you find long-term healing today.