A Young Man Decides to See His Family Doctor About His Depression and His Drinking Problems
Posted on July 31st, 2009. Filed under: Health.Larry eventually decided that he needed to go and see his family doctor about his irresponsible drinking. At first, Larry thought he would be able to merely go on the Internet, look for some basic alcohol info, and establish whether or not he was alcohol dependent. Not unexpectedly, he found several websites that highlighted some of the common alcoholism symptoms. That’s the good news. The less than encouraging news, sadly, was that Larry manifested a host of these alcoholism symptoms.
Symptoms of Alcoholism: Some Illustrations
As a case in point, Larry was drinking significantly more than customary and he was beginning to have more angry quarrels with the young lady he was dating. What is more, for the first time in his life he was having sleeping difficulties. Similarly, Larry frequently felt depressed and on an increasing basis he had been manifesting poor attention to detail at his place of employment.
In addition, he felt highly stressed and more tense on a day-to-day basis and for the past five or six months he exhibited unclear thinking at his place of employment. Since Larry manifested all of these symptoms, he was rightly concerned about his abusive drinking.
So Larry finally made up his mind to call his family healthcare practitioner and make an appointment. In fact, this was somewhat demanding for Larry because his doctor was also his parents’ physician. The origin of his worry was this: at the risk of embarrassing his family, he had to go and reveal his careless and excessive drinking behavior to his doctor.
When Larry arrived at the family physician’s family healthcare practitioner’s office, he plainly told the doctor about the consternation he had about his excessive drinking behavior. When the healthcare professional asked what was setting off this fear, Larry stated that he had gone on the Internet and read about dependency on alcohol and especially about alcoholism symptoms. He then listed all of the alcohol addiction symptoms that he undoubtedly thought he manifested.
A Comprehensive Physical Examination and Outpatient Alcohol Treatment
The family doctor informed Larry that it was intelligent of him to attend to his drinking problems, he gave Larry a complete physical examination, and suggested that he enter into an out-patient alcohol rehabilitation program that was run by one of his doctor colleagues.
Furthermore, when Larry said that he had been feeling depressed to an increasing extent, the family doctor notified Larry that alcoholism and depression often happen in the same person. Thus, the physician also recommended that Larry seek therapy to concentrate on his depression.
The Merit of Dealing With Your Drinking Difficulties
The healthcare practitioner made it a point to notify Larry that he might not necessarily be an alcoholic, but that he was clearly drinking in an abusive manner. The family physician then told Larry that the reason he recommended alcohol rehab in the first place was because he wanted him to confront his drinking problems, make sure that he stopped them from getting worse, and start to live in a more healthy manner, even if it meant that he had to fully quit drinking.
To put it briefly, by productively treating his drinking problems, Larry would be able to get his drinking issues under control and abstain from the negative series of events that could in all probability result in alcohol addiction.
Obviously, Larry did not want to face the thought of getting admitted into an alcohol rehabilitation facility. Nor was he euphoric about going to a therapist about his melancholy. Irrespective of these apprehensions, then again, Larry in fact experienced some emotional relief for the first time in several months because he eventually quit making excuses for himself and decided to do something positive about his drinking problems.