Teresa was a thirty-four-year-old executive secretary who realized that she had a problem with her drinking. As an illustration, within the past five months she has felt the need to have one or two drinks before going to work, two weeks ago she tested positive for a hair alcohol test where she is employed, seven weeks ago she got arrested by the police for a DUI, and lastly, for approximately five months she has begun to forget what she says and does when she goes out drinking with her friends.
Not unlike many other drinkers, Teresa’s experiences with alcohol started out little by little and stayed at this pace for quite a long time because every now and then she engaged in casual social drinking. In reality, for about three years, every time she went out to drink, she made sure to drink responsibly. Something about her pattern of drinking, nevertheless, seemed to drastically change when she divorced her husband.
So She Can Endure the Breakup of Her Husband More Rapidly, Teresa Came to the Conclusion That She Will Begin Going Out More Frequently With Some of Her Pals Who Love to ”Get Down” and Drink
Teresa got awfully down in the dumps about the divorce from her husband, and as a way to refrain from her preoccupation with her disheartening feelings she decided to begin associating more regularly with some of her pals who love to have fun and drink.
Quite candidly, Teresa reasoned that having fun nearly every day by drinking and partying with her pals would help her come to terms with the divorce of her husband with less sorrow.
Teresa’s Drinking Escalates Substantially the More Habitually She Goes to Private Parties, Dinner Dates, Happy Hours, Sporting Events, and Family Get-Togethers With Her Buddies
It didn’t take very long, nevertheless, before her drinking increased to a significant degree the more routinely she went to and drank at sporting events, family get-togethers, dinner dates, happy hours, and private parties with her buddies. Furthermore, the fact that her drinking pals were all quite a bit younger than she was and therefore able to party more frequently and harder was one of the reasons that she didn’t concentrate more on her increased drinking. In short, she was having fun drinking just like everybody else in her group of buddies without giving too much thought to the outcome of her irresponsible drinking.
Yet in the back of her mind she realized that she more likely than not needed alcohol rehabilitation but sidestepped the thought as much as she could.
Teresa Gets a Physical, Acknowledges Her Drinking to Her Healthcare Professional, and Admits Her Depression
One day during her six-month physical, her physician asked her if she drank alcohol. Not wanting to tell falsehoods to her healthcare practitioner, Teresa admitted that she commonly drinks more than she should. In point of fact, she articulated that she routinely drinks in a hazardous manner. Then Teresa told her physician about her general state of gloom. More plainly, she mentioned that shattered relationships commonly started a disheartening cycle of events typified by increased drinking which further led to more dismal feelings that, in turn, led to more drinking. And this is precisely what happened when her husband and she got divorced two years ago.
When her doctor heard this, he told Teresa that according to various alcoholism facts and statistics on alcoholism he was investigating, alcoholism and depression frequently happen in the same person. He then informed Teresa that some of the alcohol statistics, research investigations, and facts he has been looking into also underscore the fact that individuals who drink in an abusive and excessive manner and who also suffer from depression need to obtain treatment for both medical situations.
Teresa’s Healthcare Professional Makes an Appointment for a Psychological Appraisal and For an Alcohol Dependency and Alcohol Abuse Assessment
Teresa’s doctor then articulated the following: “I am not trying to make an unprepared analysis, but with your medical situation we may be dealing with two separate matters. As a result, I think we probably should schedule an appointment for you to get an alcohol abuse and alcoholism appraisal from my partner, Dr. Petroff, who is a drug and alcohol abuse specialist. Whether your drinking situation is more linked to alcohol addiction or alcohol abuse is not clear, but I think that further evaluation is needed. Then I believe we probably should make an appointment for you to get a psychological exam from another one of my partners, Dr. Rinkel, who is a counseling psychologist. I want to get some additional information about your depression and see how much your depression and drinking are related.” Teresa displayed her endorsement of her physician’s treatment approach and thanked him for his assistance. Now all she had to do was to try to reduce her drinking and wait for her appointments.
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