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Addicted and Mentally Ill

Stories of Courage, Hope, and Empowerment

• By Bruce Carruth, Carol Bucciarelli

• Price: $16.95
• Binding: Paperback
• Pages: 142
• Published by: Routledge
• Publication Date: 24th November 2004
• ISBN: 978-0-7890-1886-1

About the Book

Reconnect with dually diagnosed individuals using stories they can identify with!

Addicted and Mentally Ill: Stories of Courage, Hope, and Empowerment is a powerful tool to recommend to your clients who are dually diagnosed. This book presents vignettes about people with mental illness and addiction whose situations are representative of what goes on in a dual-diagnosis in-patient setting. This nonclinical, easy-to-read resource will give you, your patients, and their family members unique insight on dual diagnosis and how co-occurring mental illness and addiction can be treated with the minimum amount of blame, shame, or poor decision-making.

Addicted and Mentally Ill focuses on the most significant issues surrounding these individuals, such as:

• dual diagnosis and the family system—how family can help or hinder treatment
• the reasons why dually diagnosed clients resist treatment
• the fear of losing self-identity in treatment
• the misunderstandings about dual diagnosis—from the perspectives of the client, family members, and professionals in medicine and social work
• the role of hope, empowerment, and spirituality in recovery in dual diagnosis
• what the patient/client and family members can do to improve treatment options

Addicted and Mentally Ill is unique for its storytelling format, consisting of brief tales and short explanations you can recommend to clients and families with limited clinical knowledge or time. This innovative tool answers many of the questions that dually diagnosed individuals may have and helps them learn of the issues surrounding their illness as well as their addiction. For those professionals who provide direct counseling to these clients or patients, this book offers an interesting and nonthreatening way to help them learn about treatment options.

The stories in Addicted and Mentally Ill confront the life problems specific to dually diagnosed individuals, including:

• alcohol, drugs, and self-medication
• the difficulties of building trust in group therapy settings
• psychotropic medications
• illnesses such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, depression, and personality disorders
• suicide

Table of Contents

• Preface
  
• Acknowledgments
  
• Chapter 1. Dual Diagnosis and the Family System
  
• Who Takes Care of Whom?
  
• When Is Too Much Help No Help?
  
• What Happens When Family Seems to Be the Enemy?
  
• When Family Members Die, Then What?
  
• Chapter 2. Reasons for Resisting Treatment
  
• If I Get Well, Will I Lose Control?
  
• Will I Stop Feeling Normal if I Stop Using?
  
• Who Will I Be if I Get Well?
  
• Whom Can I Trust?
  
• Chapter 3. Misunderstandings About Dual Diagnosis
  
• What Is “Normal” versus “Abnormal” Behavior?
  
• How Is My Grandiosity a Problem?
  
• What’s Wrong with Getting Over on People?
  
• Who’s More Scared of My Anger, You or I?
  
• What if I Say There’s More Than One Me?
  
• Chapter 4. The Role of Hope, Empowerment, and Spirituality in Recovery for the Dually Diagnosed Client
  
• Hope
  
• Empowerment
  
• Spirituality
  
• Chapter 5. What the Consumer and the Family of the Consumer Can Do Today to Improve Treatment Options
  
• Getting Well: Finding and Receiving Appropriate Dual-Diagnosis Treatment
  
• Ensuring Wellness for All: The Need for Advocacy for Improved Dual-Diagnosis Treatment
  
• Staying Well: The Importance of Continuing Care
  
• Hope for the Future: The Search for Quality of Life
  
• Suggested Readings
  
• Index
  
• Reference Notes Included