Podcast: Dual-Diagnosis in AA Recovery

What is Dual-diagnosis in recovery?

What is dual diagnosis?. Very simply it applies to someone who comes into recovery from alcoholism but also suffers from a co-existing mental health issue. This is a simple and understandable definition of dual-diagnosis. There is some confusion in the fellowship regarding what untreated alcoholism really is? Is there a difference between the symptoms of untreated alcoholism and the presence of co-existing mental health issues?

Anxiety and depression in AA sobriety

For some recovering alcoholics, severe anxiety and depression make it difficult for them to stay sober. They find life in recovery too challenging. Their symptoms are so pronounced, that some members need to seek professional medical advice. There are members that lean towards a more fundamentalist approach to recovery. They have difficulty in accepting that some members suffer from problems other than alcoholism. For reasons that are not always clear, they declare that the symptoms described by some members are not real mental health problems. They believe that these members are merely suffering from untreated alcoholism. They maintain that these members are merely suffering from self-pity and not a depressive illness

Mental health or untreated alcoholism?

TIt appears to be easier for people that take the AA literature literally to believe that ALL alcoholics in recovery are merely suffering from defects of character. In the fellowship, defects of character are frequently associated with untreated alcoholism. These AA fundamentalists declare that symptoms of depression are nothing more than self-pity. These members also believe that anxiety is nothing more than self-centred fear. What do you think? Is depression just self-pity and is an anxiety disorder merely alcoholic self-centeredness? Please listen to the podcast and draw your own conclusions?