Major Depressive Disorder and Addiction Treatment in Arizona

Feelings of worthlessness can overwhelm you. Your mind may feel foggy, and you may feel overly responsible for things outside your control. At its worst, you may have thoughts of ending your life. This is a clear indication you require major depressive disorder and addiction treatment in Arizona.

Means to Cope

Because this experience is so dreadful, you may have sought various relief methods, including finding yourself in nature but it didn’t work. Perhaps you turned to alcohol to help with sleep or numb the pain. You may have tried a stimulant to boost your energy. You may have turned to other substances to seek a reprieve, and you may have become addicted in the process. Depression and substance use disorder are common co-occurring disorders. For example, you may have turned to substance use to cope with depression; then, substance use’s chemical imbalances and ill effects can intensify your depression. This is a vicious cycle.

However, there is hope, and you are not alone. People are recovering every day. If you have a major depressive disorder and seek addiction treatment in Arizona, you have amazing treatment options and support groups that address addiction and underlying causes such as depression. In our halfway house Tucson and other locations, beautiful relationships can develop with people who have walked in similar shoes and gained freedom.

If you’ve experienced depression, you know it is a painful, frustrating, and bewildering place to be. You shift from emotional pain to numbness. Sometimes there is irritability, sometimes tears, while at other times a void in which you cannot cry. There is a loss of passion for things you used to enjoy. Your sleeping and eating patterns change; there may be too much or too little of both. No matter how much sleep you get, you feel tired. You move slowly, and it can feel nearly impossible to engage in exercise.

Types of Major Depressive Disorder and Addiction Treatment in Arizona

Major Depressive Disorder and Addiction Treatment in Arizona typically includes a combination of medication, therapy, and support groups. Medication can be used to treat the depression, while therapy can help address the underlying issues that led to the addiction. Support groups can provide a safe and supportive environment for recovery.

You may choose to attend inpatient or outpatient treatment in our sober living Phoenix homes. Depending on the severity of what you are experiencing, you might need medical detox. Inpatient treatment generally offers medical detox and group and individual therapies. Depending on the treatment center, there are lectures and spiritual care available. In addition, some treatment centers offer body-based healing, such as yoga. The structure, reprieve, and clinical support of a treatment center can help tend to both the symptoms and root causes of depression and addiction.

Stress, Trauma, & Genetics: Root Causes of Depression

Stress is the biological activation of the fight, flight, and freeze response. Stress can be beneficial when it supports you in taking needed actions throughout the day. However, you need relief from this active state for stress to remain beneficial. This process is akin to the inhale and the exhale; we need both. If we only inhale and never experience an exhale, we could not breathe, and our system would not function.

Stress can become traumatic when you are constantly in a fight-flight-freeze activation. For example, when you are in a flight state, you might have impulses to leave a job or a relationship. You might feel as though you need to move homes or radically change your life situation. Flight is the experience of anxiety. When you are in a fight state, you find yourself irritable over little things. You might feel aggressively toward those close to you. You may be more confrontational than usual, or you may turn your anger inward through a loud inner critic. When you are in a freeze-state, this is the experience of depression.

When stress is not discharged, it can build in your nervous system. And, when enough stress accumulates, you may experience symptoms of trauma. Trauma is stress that is so significant that it can cause co-morbid disorders like anxiety, depression, and addiction. Genetic factors may also play a role in the development of depression. Although there is still much to be researched here, twin studies, linkage studies, and association studies explore how our environment and genetics can potentially lead to a greater risk of developing depression.