Teresa was a thirty-eight-year-old interior designer who realized that she had a drinking problem. As an illustration, within the past five months she has felt the need to have more than a few drinks before going to work, a week ago she tested positive for a urine alcohol test where she works, two weeks ago she got stopped by the state highway patrol for a DWI, and finally, for the past four months she has started to fail to remember what she says and does when she goes out drinking.
Like huge numbers of other individuals, Teresa’s alcohol involvement began slowly and remained at this pace for quite a long period of time because at times she engaged in intermittent social drinking. In truth, for nearly six months, every time she went out to drink, she made sure to drink in moderation. Something about her drinking situation, nonetheless, seemed to drastically change when she got divorced.
So She Can Come to Terms With the Breakup of Her Husband In a less Painful manner, Teresa Came to the Conclusion That She Will Begin Going Out More Repeatedly With Some of Her Friends Who Love to ”Get Down” and Drink
Teresa got very dejected about the loss of her husband, and as a way to refrain from dwelling on her disheartening emotions she determined that she would begin associating more often with some of her friends who love to have fun drinking.
Quite candidly, Teresa concluded that having fun nearly every day by drinking with her buddies would help her overcome the loss of her husband in a less wearisome manner.
Teresa’s Drinking Escalates Greatly the More Often She Goes to Private Parties, Family Get-Togethers, Happy Hours, Dinner Dates, and Sporting Events With Her Buddies
It didn’t take very long, nevertheless, before her drinking increased to a significant extent the more habitually she went to and drank at private parties, dinner dates, happy hours, sporting events, and family get-togethers with her buddies. Not only this, but the fact that her drinking buddies were all much younger than she was and therefore able to drink more irresponsibly was one of the reasons why she didn’t focus more on her increased drinking. To be brief, she was having lots of fun drinking just like everyone else in her group of buddies without giving much thought to the unhealthy results of her abusive and excessive drinking.
Yet somewhere in the recesses of her mind she realized that she probably needed alcohol rehab but sidestepped the thought as much as humanly possible.
Teresa Gets a Physical Exam, Acknowledges Her Irresponsible to Her Physician, and Owns Up to the Truth About Her Melancholy
One morning during her six-month physical, her healthcare professional asked her if she drank alcohol. Not wanting to lie to her physician, Teresa owned up to the fact that she regularly drinks more than she should. If truth be told, she said that she frequently drinks in an abusive manner. Then Teresa informed her healthcare professional about her general state of gloom. More explicitly, she articulated that shattered relationships commonly initiated a depressing sequence of events characterized by increased drinking which further resulted in more dismal feelings that, in turn, led to more drinking. And this is exactly what happened when her husband and she got divorced two years ago.
When her healthcare professional heard this, he informed Teresa that according to various facts and statistics on alcoholism he has been researching, alcoholism and depression routinely take place in the same person. He then informed her that some of the alcohol statistics, research investigations, and facts he has been looking into also point out that individuals who drink excessively and who also experience depression need to get treatment for both medical circumstances.
Teresa’s Physician Schedules an Appointment for a Psychological Assessment and For an Alcohol Dependency and Alcohol Abuse Evaluation
Teresa’s healthcare professional then told her the following: “I am not trying to make a spur-of-the-moment diagnosis, but with your medical situation we may be facing two separate concerns. As a consequence, I think we need to schedule an appointment for you to get an alcohol addiction and alcohol abuse evaluation from my partner, Dr. Poulos, who is a substance abuse and chemical dependency specialist. Whether your drinking circumstance is more linked to alcohol abuse or alcohol addiction is unknown at this time, but I believe that further assessment is justifiable. Then I think we probably should make an appointment for you to get a psychological evaluation from another one of my partners, Dr. Castro, who is a counseling psychologist. I want to get a deeper understanding about your sadness and see how much your depression and drinking are intertwined.” Teresa showed her approval of her doctor’s plan of attack and thanked him for his help. Now all she had to do was to try to lessen her drinking and wait for her appointments.
