I work for a workers compensation insurance company. On more than one occasion, injured workers have been given beer by the hospital due to their alcoholism. Usually one beer with each meal. Yes, we paid for it. No, you can’t save the breakfast and lunch beers so you can have three at dinner.
I’m stunned.
That actually makes too much sense for it to be allowed, I would think, in this day and age of “zero-tolerance.”
I know a woman who is a CNA at a high-end nursing home, and that home actually has a bar! Residents who are allowed to have alcoholic beverages can order two drinks a day; the bar opens at 4pm and she says it can often be quite the social hour for the higher functioning patients. It’s also not uncommon for a doctor to order it as an appetite stimulant or sleep aid. ETA: It’s beer and wine only; this place is not licensed to serve anything else.
As an aside, this woman is a Carmelite nun who lives in an apartment at that home with several other nuns who also work there; they do not have to pay rent and receive a stipend instead of an hourly wage.
Believe me, medical staff would rather have patients be honest with their drug and alcohol use, and its use in the facility above board and documented.
My girlfriend was served 3 beers a day while in the hospital. She spent two weeks in the medical hospital and 3 more weeks in detox. Ne beer in detox.
Working in Vancouver it was not uncommon for alcoholics to come to hospital with a mickey or even to steal and drink hand sanitizer. It isn’t hard to get or sneak alcohol, and withdrawal symptoms are also common. Many have known histories, other stigmata of liver disease or unusual blood work – but it would depend on the situation, I guess.
I’ve worked in hospitals for twenty years and we don’t give alcoholics alcohol. Ever. We treat their detox symptoms with drugs. I know in the past alcohol was used for this but IME not anymore.
Edit to add. As Dr Paprika mentioned, alcoholics will sometimes drink hand sanitizer. I’ve noted in another thread that they are in one respect my favorite kind of drunk. They have a much more pleasant smell as they are vomiting.
Not the same as a true nursing home, but most decent independent or assisted living facilities serve limited alcohol as part of the meals or entertainment programs. Afternoon happy hours and beer/wine with dinner and sometimes lunch are commonplace.
By itself it probably wouldn’t be enough daily quantity to satisfy an alcoholic. But it at least helps keep them out in the open.
Quoted for truth.
This facility has semi-independent assisted living, and a unit for people who need full-fledged nursing home care, so it’s a nursing home.
He was a newly minted paraplegic and he managed to sneak out of the hospital to get booze? How did that work?
After a couple of months he could get around just fine. This was one of the largest hospitals in San Jose, and it was always busy. I came and went as I pleased to visit him, and no one ever batted an eye as I roamed the hospital. I didn’t check in with the nurses station or anything, I just marched straight to his room, or wandered the spinal rehab unit until I found him. They had posting visiting hours, but nobody paid any attention to them. My point is, he could have wheeled himself right out the front door, and I doubt anyone would have questioned it. They probably would have assumed he was going out for a smoke or something.
But anyway, there is once incident I remember that caused me to mention him sneaking out. I was visiting one night, and he told me the previous night an orderly had accused him of sneaking out to a local bar, and that he (the orderly) smelled alcohol on my cousin. My cousin was all indignant about it, as an alcoholic usually acts when they say they are dry but accused of drinking (when, in fact, they are). I bought his story at the time, but later, looking back, I assume the orderly was most likely correct. And I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn it happened more than once.