Larry is a fifteen-year-old teenager who has finally determined that he needs to go and see his family physician about his abusive drinking. At first, Larry thought he would be able to basically go on the Internet, look for some fundamental alcohol info, and establish whether or not he was an alcoholic.
Not surprisingly, he discovered several websites that specified some of the general alcoholism symptoms. That’s the positive news. The less than encouraging news, sadly, was that Larry displayed numerous of these alcoholism symptoms.
Alcoholism Symptoms: Some Illustrations
As a case in point, Larry has been drinking quite a bit more than customary and he has started to have more intense bickering with his girlfriend. What is more, for the first time in his young life he has been experiencing sleeping issues. In a similar manner, Larry time and again has felt depressed and on an escalating basis he has been manifesting less than usual concentration in class. Furthermore, he has felt highly stressed and more anxious on a daily basis and for the past few months he has shown evidence of murky thinking at school. In view of the fact that Larry has been manifesting all of these symptoms, he was justifiably apprehensive about his excessive and unhealthy drinking.
So Larry at long last made up his mind to call his family doctor and make an appointment. In fact, this was rough for Larry because his family healthcare practitioner was also his parents’ healthcare practitioner. The springboard for his anxiety was this: at the risk of embarrassing his family, he had to go and disclose his abusive and hazardous drinking behavior to his physician.
When Larry arrived at the family doctor’s office, he openly notified the healthcare professional about the apprehension he has about his abusive drinking behavior. When the physician asked what was triggering this trepidation, Larry said that he had gone online and read about dependency on alcohol and especially about alcoholism symptoms. He then articulated all of the alcohol dependency symptoms that he obviously thought he has.
An In Depth Physical Assessment and Outpatient Alcohol Treatment
The family healthcare practitioner informed Larry that it was smart of him to focus on his problem drinking, he gave Larry a thoroughgoing physical examination, and suggested that he talk to his Mom and Dad about signing into an out-patient alcohol rehabilitation program that was run by Doctor Chambers, one of his doctor associates who is a drug and alcohol addiction specialist.
Furthermore, when Larry mentioned that he has been feeling a sense of melancholy more regularly, the healthcare practitioner told Larry that alcoholism and depression on a fairly routine basis crop up in the same person. For that reason, the healthcare practitioner also suggested that Larry talk to his parents about obtaining therapy in order to attend to his sense of gloom. In fact, Larry can go to the local mental health facility and make an appointment with Doctor Glosik, a renowned counseling psychologist who specializes in treating youth.
The Value of Coming To Grips With Your Drinking Difficulties
The doctor made it a point to inform Larry that he might not necessarily be addicted to alcohol, but that he was plainly drinking in a hazardous manner. The family physician then notified Larry that the reason he suggested alcohol treatment in the first place was because he wanted him to confront his drinking problems, make sure that he prevented them from getting worse, and start to live in a more healthy manner, even if it meant that he had to thoroughly stop drinking.
In a nutshell, by productively treating his drinking difficulties, Larry would be able to get his drinking issues under control and abstain from the negative sequence of events that could most likely lead to alcohol addiction.
Larry clearly did not look forward to facing his Mom and Dad about his excessive drinking and his depression. And he undoubtedly did not want to face the thought of getting registered into an alcohol rehab center. And finally, he was not thrilled about going to a psychologist about his depression. Despite these fears, nevertheless, Larry in fact experienced some emotional relief for the first time in many months because he ultimately stopped making excuses for himself and decided to do something positive about his drinking behavior.