A Woman Displays Symptoms of Depression and Alcohol Abuse and Schedules an Appointment to See Her Medical Practitioner About Her Excessive and Hazardous Drinking
Teresa was a forty-two-year-old insurance agent who realized that she had some problems with her drinking. For example, within the past two months she has experienced the need to have a drink or two before going to work, five weeks ago she tested positive for a breathalyzer test where she is employed, four months ago she got arrested by the state highway patrol for “driving under the influence”, and finally, for the last two months she has started to forget what she does and says when she drinks.
Not unlike huge numbers of other individuals, Teresa’s alcohol involvement began slowly and continued at this level for quite a long time due to the fact every now and then she engaged in occasional social drinking. In reality, for nearly ten months, every time she went out with her pals to drink, she made sure to drink moderately. Something about her drinking circumstances, nonetheless, seemed to radically change when she divorced her husband.
So She Can Endure the Loss of Her Husband With Less Distress, Teresa Determined That She Will Start Palling Around More Routinely With Some of Her Friends Who Love to ”Get Down” and Drink
Teresa got dreadfully gloomy about the loss of her husband, and as a way to stop fixating on her negative emotions she made up her mind to start hanging around more frequently with some of her buddies who love to have fun drinking.
Quite sincerely, Teresa concluded that having fun almost every day by getting an alcohol “buzz” with her buddies would help her recover from the loss of her husband with less grief.
Teresa’s Drinking Escalates Considerably the More Often She Goes to Family Get-Togethers, Sporting Events, Happy Hours, Dinner Dates, and Private Parties With Her Pals
It didn’t take very long, nevertheless, before her drinking increased considerably the more habitually she went to and drank at happy hours, private parties, family get-togethers, dinner dates, and sporting events with her buddies. Moreover, the fact that her drinking pals were all many years younger than she was and therefore able to party more thoughtlessly was one of the reasons that she didn’t focus more on her increased drinking. Simply put, she was drinking and having a ton of fun just like everybody else in her group of buddies without giving much thought to the unhealthy consequences of her irresponsible and excessive drinking.
Yet somewhere in her awareness she realized that she most likely needed alcohol treatment but stayed away from the thought as much as possible.
Teresa Gets a Physical Exam, Acknowledges Her Irresponsible and Excessive Drinking to Her Healthcare Practitioner, and Admits Her Depression
One late afternoon during her six-month physical, her physician asked her if she drank alcohol. Not wanting to tell “stories” to her healthcare professional, Teresa admitted that she regularly drinks more than she should. In actual fact, she articulated that she regularly drinks in a hazardous and excessive manner. Then Teresa told her healthcare professional about her dejection. More explicitly, she articulated that ruined relationships often set off a depressing progression of events typified by increased drinking which further resulted in more depressing feelings that, in turn, led to more drinking. And this is explicitly what happened when she and her husband got divorced four years ago.
When her healthcare practitioner heard this, he told Teresa that according to various alcoholism facts and statistics on alcoholism he was reviewing, alcoholism and depression often take place in the same individual. He then told her that some of the alcohol statistics, research investigations, and facts he has been studying also stress the fact that people who drink in an abusive and hazardous manner and who also suffer from depression need to receive treatment for both medical conditions.
Teresa’s Physician Schedules an Appointment for a Psychological Assessment and For an Alcohol Addiction and Alcohol Abuse Evaluation
Teresa’s doctor then stated the following: “I am not trying to make an unprofessional judgment, but with your medical situation we may be working with two separate issues. As a consequence, I think we need to schedule an appointment for you to get an alcohol abuse and alcoholism assessment from my partner, Dr. Arndt, who is an alcohol and drug abuse specialist. Whether your drinking situation is more correlated with alcohol addiction or alcohol abuse is not clear at this time, but I feel that further exploration is needed. Then I feel we need to make an appointment for you to get a psychological assessment from another one of my partners, Dr. Nardi, who is a counseling psychologist. I want to get a better grip on your depression and see how much your drinking and depression are interrelated.” Teresa displayed her satisfaction with her doctor’s treatment approach and thanked him for his time and assistance. Now all she had to do was to try to cut back on her drinking and wait for her appointments.
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