Welcome to the Dual Diagnosis Hub!

Yes, the welcome may be a bit late, as this site has been live for over 12 months, but we wanted to introduce ourselves and tell you a bit about us.

My name’s Jon, and I have a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia and ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder aka In-Attentive ADHD). I spent many years self-medicating those diagnoses and using alcohol to numb the emotions and paranoid thoughts I was getting.

I wanted a much better life, but the endless trial of different meds out, in the brief periods I was sober, took a lot out of me.

In 2008, I was introduced to Dual Recovery Anonymous (also check out Dual Diagnosis Anonymous UK/USA), which helped connect me with others who also had to take medications as part of their recovery programme.

Until then, I’d always believed the line that meds in addiction recovery were bad and that I could use the 12 Steps to heal my mental health (which I can’t and never worked for me).

In 2010, I built a website for Dual Recovery Anonymous (UK & Ireland), and I wondered at the time, wouldn’t it be good if there was a site that signposted all of the best and most useful sites, services, & organisations that help those with a dual diagnosis?

And so, after 11 years of thinking about it, I finally decided to start work on the Dual Diagnosis Hub.

I should say it’s not finished. Most of the primary sites are now complete (to some degree), but dual diagnosis is such a massive subject.

Dual Diagnosis has always been underfunded and under-resourced, which isn’t good news if you’re in the mental health &/or addiction systems.

We aim to gradually add all of the best content for anyone with mental health & addiction issues and provide those with complex mental health & addiction recovery challenges with a safe place where they can find the best dual diagnosis-related organisations, tools, & resources.

I know many people with serious mental health challenges who cannot access mental health services. If you’re ‘in the system’ in any way, and you have co-occurring issues with mental health, alcohol & or drugs, then I would guess that your needs probably aren’t currently being met.

So, we wanted to create a site that filled in some gaps. There may not be enough specific help for dual diagnosis locally. Still, it is possible to find organisations and support that can add up to a decent way towards enough support for dual recovery to start (when someone is willing to work on both illnesses, their addiction and their mental health, at the same time).

The good thing about the system is that it’s full of incredible people who desperately want to help. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting many professionals involved in the care of people with complex mental health challenges and addiction issues, and they’re good people. The truth is, though, the people aren’t the problem; the current system is. And it’s important for people with complex challenges that this system’s failures aren’t anything to do with dually diagnosed individuals.

After being told that I was going to be discharged from my local CMHT (Community Mental Health Team) at some point, I felt a bit frustrated until I was told that my local CMHT currently has four times the number of people trying to gain access to their services than they have to leave it. That’s a scary statistic, whatever way you look at it!

Addiction & mental health professionals have been underfunded for over a decade. I heard one mental health professional describe mental health service as the Cinderella service of the NHS and that dual diagnosis is the Cinderella service of mental health.

At the Dual Diagnosis Hub, we aim to help create an environment that enables people to find the types of support they need when they need it, even if the system can’t provide the full-strength services to them directly.

Our website most likely won’t ever be the perfect solution; anyone who is digitally excluded & lacking basic computer skills may well not find this site that easy to use, but we do have a simpler version of the site currently under development that’s aimed at some of these groups of people.

Still, we aim to at least signpost all of the best of your options available (locally, nationally, and internationally) that we can find or that have found us!

We hope that the information here is accepting and non-judgemental and this website can be a small part of your journey.  If it’s not, please let us know – we aim to adapt and be inclusive.  To do that, we appreciate your openness and honesty.

A mix n match isn’t ideal, but it does allow us dually diagnosed people with both mental health and alcohol/drug issues the freedom to pick ‘n’ choose what we find helpful and leave the rest. We are all different and unique, so I guess it may work out for the best anyway!

Whether alcohol or drugs have led you into difficulties, or whether they were once the solution (or you might still feel they still are) – we are all on a journey of trying to live better, more fulfilling lives or just coping with what’s been going on.  Gone are the days of one size trying to fit all; we recommend that you develop and use support networks and tools that are truly unique to your needs!

Jon : )

P.S. We also want to help mental health, addiction, and dual diagnosis organisations to develop an effective online presence and help them to support the maximum number of people that they can, so if you’re setting up mental health or addiction-related organisation, please feel free to get in touch as we’ll be more than happy to help you to develop a website to help get you off the ground!