Learning how to deal with anxiety is an essential part of drug rehab. That’s because anxiety disorders are one of the leading causes of substance abuse. If you don’t learn how to manage anxiety, you run the risk of relapsing after treatment. Before you can deal with it, you have to know if anxiety is actually the cause of your problems. Mental health treatment for anxiety can also help on your journey.
Anxiety or Anxiety Disorder
Before you can learn how to deal with anxiety disorder, you must confirm that you have one. After all, feeling anxiety from time to time is perfectly normal. Simply experiencing anxiety doesn’t mean that you have a disorder. For example, some signs of anxiety disorders typically include:
- Excessive worry without relief
- Feeling agitated often without reason
- Restlessness
- Fatigue from worrying
- Difficulty staying focused
- Trouble sleeping
These signs of anxiety disorders can vary from person to person. Also, just because you have some of these signs doesn’t mean that you have a disorder. In fact, only a doctor can diagnose you with an anxiety disorder.
The Link Between Anxiety and Addiction
There’s a bigger link between anxiety and addiction that you may know. Anxiety disorders are common among young adults. Unfortunately, few young adults ever seek professional help for anxiety disorders. Because of that, they often wonder how to deal with anxiety on their own.
In most cases, they self-medicate in order to deal with the symptoms. Taking drugs or drinking alcohol relieves some of them. However, the relief only lasts for the duration of the drugs. As a result, people must keep abusing drugs to relieve the symptoms, which eventually transforms into an addiction.
Learning How to Deal With Anxiety
Most of the time, learning to deal with anxiety isn’t something that you can do on your own. One reason is that anxiety disorders are often the result of chemical imbalances in the brain. With that said, an anxiety treatment program can teach you coping skills that lessen the symptoms.
One coping skill is to separate the real risks from the ones that you imagine. In fact, experts refer to this approach as the “get-real” method. The majority of the thoughts that cause anxiety in individuals are the result of their own imaginations.
In order to relieve anxiety, you need to push these thoughts out of your mind. A rehab center can teach you how to do it. Also, you might need medication to deal with the chemical imbalance in your brain. Once again, only a doctor can prescribe medications to rebalance the chemicals.
Fight Back Against Anxiety and Addiction
Are you looking for young adult rehab programs that can teach you how to handle anxiety? If so, Red Oak Recovery® is for you. We offer addiction treatment for young adults while also helping them deal with underlying problems such as anxiety. A few of the programs that we offer include:
- Dual diagnosis treatment program
- Individual therapy program
- Group therapy program
- Trauma therapy program
- Eco-therapy program
Don’t let your anxiety keep you from overcoming addiction. Learn more about how to deal with anxiety. Reach out for more information from our staff at 866.457.7590.
