A Woman Displays Signs Of Alcoholism And Depression And Makes An Appointment To See Her Doctor


Cindy was a thirty-seven-year-old physical therapist who realized that she had a drinking problem. As an illustration, within the past month she has felt the need to have a drink or two before going to work, three months ago she failed to pass a random breathalyzer test at her place of employment, three months ago she got arrested for a DWI, and lastly, for going on five months she has begun to forget what she does and says when she drinks with her friends.

Similar to many other drinkers, Cindy's experiences with alcohol started out at a "snail's pace" and remained at this tempo for quite a long period of time due to the fact that every now and then she engaged in intermittent social drinking. In fact, for about eight months, every time she drank, she made sure to drink responsibly. Something about her drinking situation, nonetheless, seemed to fundamentally change when she and her husband got divorced.

Cindy got dreadfully gloomy about the divorce from her husband, and as a way to refrain from fixating on her discouraging emotions she came to a decision that she would start hanging around more frequently with some of her pals who love to drink and have fun. It didn't take very long, nonetheless, before her drinking escalated to a significant extent the more habitually she went to and drank at happy hours, family get-togethers, dinner dates, sporting events, and private parties with her buddies.

In a word, she was having a ton of fun drinking just like everyone else in her group of friends without giving too much thought to the alcohol short term effects and particularly about the alcohol long term effects she has been experiencing. Yet somewhere in her mind she knew about the adverse alcohol effects on the body and on the brain and that she most probably required alcohol counseling but avoided the thought as much as humanly possible.

One morning during her yearly physical, her healthcare practitioner asked her if she drank alcohol. Not wanting to lie to her physician, Cindy admitted that she commonly drinks more than she should. In fact, she articulated that she commonly drinks in an excessive manner. Then Cindy told her healthcare professional about her general state of gloom. More explicitly, she articulated that shattered relationships often set off a negative chain of events characterized by increased drinking which further led to more dismal feelings that, in turn, led to more drinking. And this is explicitly what happened when her husband and she got divorced seven months ago.

Cindy's healthcare practitioner then told her the following: "I am not trying to make a spur-of-the-moment judgment, but with your medical circumstances we may be facing two separate problems. As a result, I think we probably need to schedule an appointment for you to get an alcohol abuse and alcohol addiction evaluation from my partner, Dr. Warner, who is an alcohol abuse and substance abuse specialist."

"Whether your drinking situation is more related to alcohol abuse or alcohol dependency is not clear at this time, but I feel that further exploration is justifiable. Then I think we ought to schedule an appointment for you to get a psychological examination from another one of my partners, Dr. Clark, who is a clinical psychologist."

"I need to get a better read on your depression and see how much your depression and drinking are interrelated." Cindy expressed her agreement with her doctor's plan of attack and thanked him for his assistance and concern.

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