Talking to Your Family Doctor About Your Depression and Your Alcohol Difficulties
Kevin was a thirty-year-old department store manager who was starting to notice some alcohol-related problems in his life. At first, he thought he would be able to simply go online, look for some straightforward alcohol information, facts, and statistics and figure out if he was an alcohol abuser or an alcoholic. To his surprise, he found a tremendous amount of information on the Internet about people with drinking problems and he especially gravitated to the websites that listed information about some of the more common alcoholism symptoms.
Locating the alcohol addiction and alcohol abuse facts and statistics he was looking for was the positive news. The less than encouraging news, on the other hand, was the fact that Kevin exhibited many of the symptoms of alcoholism that were discussed on the websites.
What were some of the symptoms of alcoholism that Kevin identified with? First, his important relationships were deteriorating the more he drank. Second, he had a hard time getting the thoughts of drinking out of his mind. Third, virtually every negative issue in his life started to annoy him more often than usual. Fourth, he frequently felt depressed. Fifth, he often experienced hangovers, namely, an inability to remember what he said or did the night before when he was drinking. And sixth, he noticed that he was starting to lose interest in some of his favorite after work activities such as playing video games, working on his truck, and playing his guitar.
Other symptoms of alcoholism that Kevin exhibited were the following. First, in the past eight or nine weeks he has been showing poor decision-making skills and poor judgment at work. Second, he noticed that most of the money he had in his savings account was gone because his excessive drinking was so costly. Third, he was drinking more heavily than any other time in his life. And fourth, for the first time in his life he was having a real difficult time getting to sleep at night.
Due to the fact that Kevin exhibited all of these symptoms of alcoholism, he was appropriately concerned about his problem drinking. So Kevin made up his mind to do something that most problem drinkers fail to accomplish, namely, schedule an appointment with their family physician to discuss their drinking behavior.
When Kevin arrived at the family physician’s office, the first thing he stated when he saw his physician was the concern he had about his abusive drinking. When his physician asked what was setting off this anxiety, Kevin stated that he had gone online and read about different alcohol-related statistics and facts and found out that he exhibited quite a few of the more typical symptoms of alcoholism. When the physician asked him to explain what symptoms he was referring to, Kevin reached in his front pocket, took out a piece of paper, and read the total list of alcoholism symptoms that he thought he displayed.
The doctor told Kevin that he was wise to discuss his drinking behavior with him. The doctor then proceeded to give Kevin a comprehensive physical examination. After asking Kevin some drinking-related questions, he told him that it would be a good idea if he went to see Dr. Franklin, one of his fellow doctors who was a substance abuse specialist.
When Kevin proceeded to tell the doctor that he has been feeling depressed the past two or three months, the physician informed Kevin that depression and alcoholism commonly exist in the same person. As a consequence, the physician recommended that Kevin seek counseling at the mental health clinic located next to the medical arts building so that he could get help for his depression.
Understandably Kevin did not want to face the thought of registering in an alcohol treatment program. Nor was he happy about going to a counselor to work on his depression. Regardless of these valid concerns, however, Kevin truly experienced some psychological relief for the first time in nearly a year due to the fact that he refrained from making excuses for himself and with determination made up his mind that he needed to do something productive about his depression and his drinking issues.
Denny Mitchell writes about drinking problems, alcohol deaths, drunk driving, alcoholism tests, and alcoholism facts. For more info, please visit alcohol rehab clinic info.
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