People who are both alcohol abusers and bipolar will notice overlaps between the disorders. The National Institute of Mental Health reports that 5.7 million Americans havebipolar disorder. According to a2013 studypublished by Conor Farren of St. Patrick’s University Hospital, approximately 45 percent of people in the world with bipolar disorder also struggle withalcoholism. Both valproate and alcohol consumption are known to cause temporary elevations in liver function tests, and in rare cases, fatal liver failure (Sussman and McLain 1979; Lieber and Leo 1992). Therefore, the safety of valproate in the alcoholic population has been questioned because of the potential for hepatotoxicity in patients who are already at risk for this complication.
- Medication compliance is an important issue to consider when assessing the effectiveness of medications.
- Almost all drugs that are misused — from nicotine to opioids — target a an area of the brain called the nucleus accumbens.
- Fortunately, there are numerous resources available for individuals dealing with both bipolar disorder and alcohol use issues.
- Bipolar disorder, formerly known as manic depression, is a mental health condition characterized by extreme mood swings that include emotional highs (mania or hypomania) and lows (depression).
- Alcohol misuse and bipolar disorder can also produce overlapping symptoms, and they may trigger each other in some circumstances.
- Addictive behavior and alcohol and substance abuse are common among people with bipolar disorder.
Study volunteers’ data makes a big difference
Abnormalities in the cerebellar vermis, lateral ventricles, and some prefrontal areas may develop with repeated affective episodes, and may represent the effects of illness progression (Strakowski et al., 2005b). The information in this blog is provided as a general educational resource only, and is not to be used or relied on for any diagnostic or treatment purpose. This information should not be used as a substitute for professional diagnosis and treatment and does not create any patient-physician relationship between you and Cerebral. Please consult your health care provider before making any health care decisions or to get guidance about a specific medical condition. By Sarah Bence, OTR/LBence is an occupational therapist with a range of work experience in mental healthcare settings.
Calls to any general helpline will be received by Pinnacle Health Group or Still Behavioral Health Group, both of whom are paid advertisers. The National Institutes of Health give no specific advice against using alcohol with lithium, but a doctor may provide additional information. If a person has psychosis and consumes alcohol, this can lead to both short-term and long-term complications. Depending on which you choose, NIMH reports you can learn new skills that encourage health-promoting choices such as coping with self-destructive thoughts and other alternatives in managing intense emotions.
Circadian rhythm disruptions in bipolar disorder
One proposed explanation is that certain psychiatric disorders (such as bipolar disorder) may be risk factors for substance use. Alternatively, symptoms of bipolar disorder may emerge during the course of chronic alcohol intoxication or withdrawal. Still other studies have suggested that people with bipolar disorder may use alcohol during manic episodes in an attempt at self-medication, either to prolong their pleasurable state or to sedate the agitation of mania. Finally, other researchers have suggested that alcohol use and withdrawal may affect the same brain chemicals (i.e., neurotransmitters) involved in bipolar illness, thereby allowing one disorder to change the clinical course of the other. In other words, alcohol use or withdrawal may “prompt” bipolar disorder symptoms (Tohen et al. 1998).
According to these authors, clinical staging may provide a more holistic approach to dual BD patient’s problematic areas, including neurocognitive dysfunctions. Here we suggest that BD-AUD may similarly benefit from the application of another holistic perspective—systems biology. In fact, some studies have found that the majority of individuals with bipolar disorder will develop an alcohol use disorder of some kind during their lives. Some estimates suggest that up to 43% of individuals with bipolar disorder have some form of an alcohol use disorder at any given time. Sperry notes that previous studies have shown that more than half of people who have a bipolar disorder diagnosis also experience alcohol use disorders sometime in their lives, and that many report using alcohol to help them get to sleep.
Depressive symptoms and alcohol
It remains unclear which if any of these potential mechanisms is responsible for the strong association between alcoholism and bipolar disorder. It is very likely that this relationship is not simply a reflection of cause and effect but rather that it is complex and bidirectional. Although research suggests that alcohol and other drug abuse may worsen the course of bipolar disorder, some data indicate that patients with bipolar disorder and alcoholism do better in substance abuse treatment than alcoholic patients with other mood disorders. O’Sullivan and colleagues (1988) found that alcoholics with bipolar disorder functioned better during a 2-year followup period than did primary alcoholics (i.e., those without comorbid mood disorders) or alcoholics with unipolar depression.
They hijack the brain’s ability to modify connections in the mind and reroute those connections to home in on the pleasurable effects of a drug at the expense of all other functions. As a result, they suggest that clinics should use a standardized measurement tool such as the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test, or AUDIT, to gauge alcohol use patterns at any level over time, and guide conversations between patients and providers. Both tend to occur more frequently in people who have a family member with the condition.
Alcohol and mood stabilizers, for instance, can lead to increased sedation, impaired cognitive function, and reduced effectiveness of the medication. Another study by the same research group focused on cognition during the course of early remission from a severe mood episode (Levy et al., 2012). This 3-month, follow-up study compared 21 BD patients with AUDs in the previous year and 34 BD patients without a history Facts about moderate drinking of SUDs. Dually diagnosed patients performed worse on measures of verbal memory, visual memory, and executive functioning on both assessments and showed a poorer neurocognitive recovery relative to those without SUDs.
In this regard, a Taiwanese study focused only on type-II BD (Shan et al., 2011). The authors compared 19 patients with comorbid AUD, 28 patients without comorbid AUD, and 22 healthy controls. All participants were alcohol-free at least 24 h before examination and BD patients were euthymic. Compared to the other two groups, dual patients performed significantly worse on tasks of visual memory, verbal memory, attention, psychomotor speed, and executive functioning. In addition, working memory was impaired in both BD groups, although more so in dual patients. However, the clinical groups were not balanced regarding gender, educational level and number of hospitalizations, so a potential influence of these relevant variables on neurocognitive results cannot be entirely ruled out.
Unsure of what to do or how to feel when an episode occurs make turning to alcohol a very appealing solution in relieving these mind-numbing symptoms. A person with bipolar disorder can usually remain healthy if they take their medication as a prescribed, and if they avoid alcohol. As a result, a person with bipolar disorder may not get the correct treatment that can relieve their symptoms. In 2011, researchers noted that alcohol misuse can result in a misdiagnosis of bipolar disorder.