AOD Use and Psychiatric Symptoms AOD use can cause psychiatric symptoms and mimic psychiatric syndromes. AOD use can initiate or exacerbate a psychiatric disorder. AOD use can mask psychiatric symptoms and syndromes. AOD withdrawal can cause psychiatric symptoms and mimic psychiatric syndromes. Psychiatric and AOD use disorders can independently coexist.
Psychiatric behaviors can mimic AOD use problems.
The term dual diagnosis is a common, broad term that indicates the simultaneous presence of two independent medical disorders. Recently, within the fields of mental health, psychiatry, and addiction medicine, the term has been popularly used to describe the coexistence of a mental health disorder and AOD problems. The acronym MICA, which represents the phrase mentally ill chemical abusers, is occasionally used to designate people who have an AOD disorder and a markedly severe and persistent mental disorder such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. A preferred definition is mentally ill chemically affected people, since the word affected better describes their condition and is not pejorative. Common examples of dual disorders include the combinations of major depression with cocaine addiction, alcohol addiction with panic disorder, alcoholism and polydrug addiction with schizophrenia, and borderline personality disorder with episodic polydrug abuse.