Ep340 – Dual Diagnosis: What’s Behind the Alcohol?Ep340 – Dual Diagnosis: What’s Behind the Alcohol?
Untoxicated Podcast
Sheri and Matt talk through dual diagnosis, sharing how mental health conditions like anxiety, depression and OCD can sit beneath alcohol use. Their candid chat highlights stigma, labels and the need for ongoing mental health work beyond simple sobriety.
1:16:22•23 Mar 2026
What’s Behind the Booze? Dual Diagnosis, Labels and Life After Sobriety
Episode Overview
- Dual diagnosis refers specifically to a substance use disorder occurring alongside another mental health condition, not just any two diagnoses.
- Stigma is reducing around alcoholism and some conditions like anxiety and depression, but diagnoses such as bipolar, borderline personality disorder and narcissism still carry heavy judgement.
- Labels can help target treatment, but they can also become a burden or an excuse, so both partners and professionals need to be cautious about how diagnoses are used.
- Many people drink to self-medicate underlying issues such as trauma, stress, fear or ADHD-type symptoms, so sobriety alone rarely resolves everything.
- Awareness and honest discussion about co-occurring issues can validate partners and drinkers alike, but each person still has to take responsibility for their own healing.
“Sobriety is not a solution, but it is a prerequisite.”
What are the common struggles and victories in addiction recovery? This conversation between Sheri and Matt Salis takes that question head-on by asking what’s really behind the alcohol when mental health issues are part of the picture. Recorded from their new makeshift studio – a walk-in wardrobe packed with clothes and humour – the episode looks at “dual diagnosis”, a term Matt explains as having a substance use disorder alongside another mental health condition.
Sheri admits she once thought it meant “any time where there are two diagnoses”, which sets the tone: this is a thoughtful, chatty breakdown aimed at ordinary couples trying to make sense of complicated labels. Matt shares his own history of depression, anxiety and OCD, and how long-term sobriety has shifted or reduced those symptoms.
He openly describes past rituals like repeatedly checking the cooker and fridge, and jokes about Sheri winding him up by saying, “Did I turn off the stove?” just to see him climb out of bed. His honesty grounds the bigger conversation about how much diagnosis helps, and where it can become “an albatross” that people use as an excuse or a source of shame.
Sheri brings in her experience from education and parenting, pointing out how labels can sometimes be used to dodge responsibility, while also recognising that many drinkers are self-medicating very real anxiety, trauma or ADHD-like issues. Together, they argue that far more than “50%” of drinkers probably have something else going on under the surface, even if it never gets formally named. The tone is warm, slightly cheeky, and deeply validating for both people who drink and their partners.
Rather than offering a quick fix, the episode leans into awareness: sobriety as the starting line, not the finish, and mental health work as the piece that often explains why the alcohol took root in the first place. So, if you’ve ever wondered, “Is it just the booze, or is there more to this?”, this conversation might give you language – and courage – to ask the next question.
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