A Woman Exhibits Symptoms of Depression and Alcohol Addiction and Schedules an Appointment to See Her Doctor About Her Abusive and Hazardous Drinking

July 3rd, 2009

Teresa was a forty-three-year-old accounts receivable manager who knew that she had a problem with her drinking. As an illustration, within the past two months she has experienced the need to have more than a few drinks before going to work, a week ago she failed a random hair alcohol test where she is employed, four months ago she got pulled over by the police for “driving under the influence”, and lastly, for about four months she has begun to fail to remember what she says and does when she drinks with her friends.

Similar to huge numbers of other drinkers, Teresa’s alcohol involvement started out little by little and continued at this level for quite a long period of time because sometimes she engaged in intermittent social drinking. In point of fact, for around ten months, every time she drank, she made sure to drink in a responsible manner. Something about her pattern of drinking, however, seemed to drastically change when her husband divorced her.

So She Can Recover From the Loss of Her Husband In a More Trouble-Free Manner, Teresa Came to a Decision That She Will Start Hanging Out More Often With Some of Her Buddies Who Love to ”Get Down” and Drink

Teresa got dreadfully depressed about the loss of her husband, and as a way to abstain from obsessing about her discouraging feelings she made up her mind that she would start hanging around more often with some of her pals who love to ”get down” and drink.

Quite candidly, Teresa thought that having fun almost every day by getting a “buzz” by drinking with her pals would help her overcome the divorce of her husband more quickly.

Teresa’s Drinking Increases Considerably the More Routinely She Goes to Dinner Dates, Sporting Events, Happy Hours, Private Parties, and Family Get-Togethers With Her Friends

It didn’t take too long, however, before her drinking increased to a significant degree the more often she went to and drank at private parties, happy hours, family get-togethers, dinner dates, and sporting events with her friends. Not only this, but the fact that her drinking buddies were all much younger than she was and therefore able to party and drink more recklessly was one of the reasons why she didn’t allocate more of her attention to her increased drinking. To be brief, she was drinking and having lots of fun just like everyone else in her group of friends without spending a lot of time thinking about the consequences of her abusive drinking.

Yet in the recesses of her mind she realized that she most probably required alcohol rehab but avoided the thought as much as humanly possible.

Teresa Gets a Physical Exam, Acknowledges Her Hazardous and Irresponsible Drinking to Her Doctor, and Acknowledges Her General State of Despair

One day during her six-month physical, her doctor asked her if she drank alcohol. Not wanting to lie to her healthcare professional, Teresa disclosed the truth that she regularly drinks more than she should. In reality, she said that she routinely drinks in an abusive and excessive manner. Then Teresa informed her doctor about her melancholy. More precisely, she mentioned that ruined relationships many times set off a discouraging sequence of events characterized by increased drinking which further resulted in more dismal feelings that, in turn, resulted in even more drinking. And this is explicitly what happened when she and her husband got divorced nine months ago.

When her physician heard this, he told Teresa that according to various facts and statistics on alcoholism he has been investigating, alcoholism and depression routinely come about in the same person. He then informed her 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 excessive and hazardous manner and who also suffer from depression need to receive treatment for both medical situations.

Teresa’s Physician Schedules an Appointment for a Psychological Evaluation and For an Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Appraisal

Teresa’s healthcare professional then told her the following: “I am not trying to make an unprepared judgment, but with your medical situation we may be confronting two separate issues. Consequently, I think we probably should make an appointment for you to get an alcohol abuse and alcoholism evaluation from my partner, Dr. Poulos, who is an alcohol abuse and alcoholism specialist. Whether your drinking circumstance is more linked to alcohol abuse or alcoholism is unclear at this time, but I think that further evaluation is defensible. Then I think we probably should make an appointment for you to get a psychological assessment from another one of my partners, Dr. Robbins, who is a clinical psychologist. I want to get some more insights about your dejection and see how much your drinking and depression are correlated.” Teresa displayed her approval of her healthcare professional’s strategy and thanked him for his help and concern. Now all she had to do was to try to decrease her drinking and wait for her appointments.