Teresa was a thirty-three-year-old court reporter who knew that she had some drinking issues. As an illustration, within the past two months she has experienced the need to have three or four drinks before going to work, three weeks ago she failed to pass a random blood alcohol test at work, two weeks ago she got stopped by the police for a DUI, and lastly, for around three months she has begun to fail to remember what she does and says when she goes out drinking with her pals.
Not unlike multitudes of other people, Teresa’s involvement with alcohol started out at a “snail’s pace” and stayed at this speed for quite a long period of time because once in a “blue moon” she engaged in casual social drinking. In reality, for about ten months, every time she drank, she made sure to drink in moderation. Something about her pattern of drinking, nonetheless, seemed to drastically change when she divorced her husband.
So She Can Get Beyond the Loss of Her Husband With Less Distress, Teresa Decided to Begin Associating More Regularly With Some of Her Buddies Who Love to Drink and Have Fun
Teresa got exceedingly despondent about the loss of her husband, and as a way to refrain from dwelling on her depressing emotions she determined that she would begin hanging around more often with some of her pals who love to ”get down” and drink.
Quite candidly, Teresa reasoned that having fun almost every day by partying and drinking with her buddies would help her rise above the breakup of her husband in a more pain free manner.
Teresa’s Drinking Increases Greatly the More Often She Goes to Sporting Events, Family Get-Togethers, Private Parties, Happy Hours, and Dinner Dates With Her Pals
It didn’t take long, however, before her drinking escalated considerably the more routinely she went to and drank at private parties, dinner dates, family get-togethers, sporting events, and happy hours with her pals. Not only this, but the fact that her drinking friends were all much younger than she was and therefore able to party and drink more irresponsibly was one of the reasons why she didn’t allocate more of her attention to her increased drinking. Simply put, she was drinking and having lots of fun just like everyone else in her group of pals without giving much thought to the negative results of her drinking.
Yet somewhere in her mind she realized that she most probably needed alcohol treatment but kept away from the thought as much as humanly possible.
Teresa Gets a Physical, ”Comes Clean” About Her Irresponsible and Excessive Drinking to Her Doctor, and Admits Her Constant Negativity
One day during her six-month physical exam, her healthcare practitioner asked her if she drank alcohol. Not wanting to tell falsehoods to her healthcare professional, Teresa ”came clean” and said that she regularly drinks more than she should. In truth, she articulated that she regularly drinks in a hazardous manner. Then Teresa told her healthcare practitioner about her dejection. More plainly, she mentioned that broken relationships commonly initiated a dismal progression of events typified by increased drinking which further resulted in more dismal feelings that, in turn, led to even more drinking. And this is exactly what happened when her husband and she got divorced eight months ago.
When her healthcare practitioner heard this, he informed Teresa that according to various facts and statistics on alcoholism he has been examining, alcoholism and depression routinely come about in the same person. He then told her that some of the alcohol statistics, facts, and research investigations he has been reading about also underscore the fact that individuals who drink irresponsibly and who also experience depression need to get treatment for both medical circumstances.
Teresa’s Physician Schedules an Appointment for a Psychological Evaluation and For an Alcohol Dependency and Alcohol Abuse Evaluation
Teresa’s doctor then said the following: “I am not trying to make an overly quick judgment, but with your medical situation we may be working with two separate matters. As a result, I think we probably should make an appointment for you to get an alcohol abuse and alcohol dependency assessment from my partner, Dr. Arndt, who is an alcoholism and alcohol abuse specialist. Whether your drinking situation is more correlated with alcohol abuse or alcohol addiction is unknown at this time, but I think that further evaluation is reasonable. Then I think we should make an appointment for you to get a psychological assessment from another one of my partners, Dr. Farr, who is a counseling psychologist. I want to get a deeper understanding about your melancholy and see how much your depression and drinking are interlinked.” Teresa showed her agreement with her doctor’s strategy and thanked him for his help and concern. Now all she had to do was to try to reduce her drinking and get ready for her appointments.