Drinking alcohol while attending college seems to be somewhat of a right of passage. However, while excessive drinking is never a good idea for various reasons, drinking heavily regularly can result in an alcohol addiction problem and lead to a substance abuse disorder and/or mental health illness. If your college student has recently started using alcohol excessively, you must have them evaluated by a behavioral health specialist before the situation gets worse. Here's what you need to know.

What Is Behavioral Health?

Behavioral health assesses how your physical well-being and mental health are impacted by your habits and behaviors. Behavioral health and mental health often go hand in hand with one exacerbating the other but not always. For example, schizophrenics have a higher rate of substance abuse disorders because their mental illness can prevent them from being able to make good behavior decisions and have good habits.

But, if someone were to drink every weekend because they like how being drunk makes them feel, which is called a maladaptive behavior, it doesn't mean they have a mental illness unless it gets to the point that they are unable to stop drinking without help. If you want to prevent your adult child from experiencing this situation, you could encourage them to be evaluated by a behavioral health service.

What Are Maladaptive Behaviors?

Maladaptive behaviors are behaviors that keep you from adjusting to everyday life in a healthy way, such as drinking, avoidance, overeating, and gambling. Adaptive behaviors are habits and behaviors that help you adapt to your environment and any changes that come along, such as eating healthy, exercising, grooming, and learning.

What Are the Treatment Options?

Systemic desensitization, flooding, and aversion therapies are types of behavioral therapy treatments and care plans that work effectively to change habits and behaviors before drinking habits get worse and the patient develops a physical dependence. The therapy that will work best for your adult child will depend first and foremost on whether or not they have any underlying mental health conditions as well as if they have developed a physical dependence on alcohol, at which point care would need to be taken to prevent withdrawal symptoms. 

Sometimes, behavioral health and mental illness co-occur, but not always. However, one can worsen the other, so it's always crucial to seek a thorough evaluation from both mental health and behavioral health specialists before moving forward with a care plan.