Stupid tw@t, I don't abuse alcohol!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So, I went in for my 3rd intake evaluation in a month yesterday (getting psychiatric help with no insurance and without committing yourself is a bureaucratic nightmare that never ends). One of the first questions I was asked is if I need substance abuse counseling. No, not at all. But, after a series of other questions, we get to the in-depth substance abuse questions.

Counselor: When did you last have something to drink?
RedRoses: (thinking of the delicious tea I’d drunk earlier) About an hour ago. (brain catching up with mouth) Oh, you mean alcoholic. :smack: No, I haven’t had anything to drink today. It’s been probably a week or 10 days since I last drank. (In fact, it was 12 days prior. And my birthday.)

We go on to some other questions, then back again to substance abuse. I can tell the counselor is picturing in her head some raging alcoholic with my face.

Counselor: So this is like a daily thing, isn’t it? Your coping strategy?
RedRoses: No! I don’t drink everyday, I told you that earlier. If it’s a Friday or a Saturday and I’m hanging out with my friends, sure. I like beer, I like trying different types of beer. But I don’t like getting drunk, so if I feel myself getting tipsy I stop.
Counselor: But you’ve been drinking for a long time.
RedRoses: Yeah, I first started drinking in high school, big deal. It’s not like I was 12. I don’t drink the way I did when I was 18 anymore. I don’t get trashed, I don’t drink anything that “gets the job done.” I enjoy the taste of beer, I like sampling new beers. But depending on my schedule, my financial situation, I might not go out with friends much. So I won’t drink for a couple months. And I don’t care. It’s a social activity. There’s a shelf full of beer in the fridge that I haven’t touched since a few weeks ago when my sister ordered Thai food and we watched a movie. And I had one beer.

I didn’t think she really believed me, but she stopped pressing the issue. I figure they’re routine questions, mental illness and substance abuse often go hand in hand. But then later, I’m going through all the paperwork she gave me, and I see the copy of my treatment plan.

It says effing “Alcohol abuse” along with my other diagnoses, and “Client refused substance abuse counseling.” Stupid bitch! I can’t enjoy beer without being labelled an alcohol abuser?

So now I’m all paranoid, thinking, is this just denial? Am I really an alcoholic? Well, let’s see. No. I don’t drink frequently enough, in sufficient volume, with the serious consequences that substance abusers do. I maintain control when I drink, so that I can say, “Wait, that’s enough.” I don’t have to drink, so if all there is is Budweiser, I’ll say, “No thanks, I’ll have a Coke.” I drink socially, so if nobody wants to hang out, I don’t drink.

It just pisses me off. Every rebuttal that comes to mind sounds so stereotypical alcoholic: But I can stop anytime I want! But I was just raised in a (half German half Irish) family that included beer and whiskey in special occasions and socializing. So, it’s my birthday, let’s knock back a few! Or, it’s Friday, you want to go to the bar and unwind, drink some beer, listen to music, and talk politics?

But just because I enjoy beer does not mean that I abuse alcohol you stupid bitch!

2

You were drunk when you typed that, weren’t you?

3

It’s ok to be an alcoholic. We understand.

4

“Whiskey you’re the devil, you’re leading me astray…”

I hate answering these questions. I get my non-urgent care at a student health center, so you can bet that they raise their eyebrows at any mention of alcohol. Thankfully the doctor didn’t push the issue after asking how often I drink. Can you get a new diagnosis from someone more evenhanded?

5

From the impression I get reading threads on the SDMB, I would think that a rather high proportion of the population of the UK would be classified alcoholic by USof A standards…

6

A long time ago I decided there were very few situations in which I would mention - let alone discuss - alcohol or drug use with a doctor. Just the letters “ETOH” written in your files can jump out as a red flag to be misinterpreted years later.

7

That’s like something out of Kafka. “Stringent denial = cover-up”.

My sentiments entirely. One of the “are you an alky?” AA questions is something like “Do most of your social interactions revolve around alcohol?”. Er… yeah, that pretty much indicts 95% of this country.

8

I was thinking about making a complaint. She’s the 3rd person I’ve spoken to with this program, but the first to push the substance abuse shit. I won’t have to talk to her anymore, and hopefully the “diagnosis” won’t haunt me. It turns out that the program for indigent mental patients won’t be able to offer me counseling because I don’t have insurance but I’m not fucked enough to qualify for Medicaid. So they gave me an appointment in a month with a nurse-practitioner to get back on my meds, making it a total of 2 months from the time I got referred to the program and I finally got an appointment with someone who can help.

But hopefully I won’t have to deal with this useless program again. I took the advice of the woman who got me the appointment yesterday and also made an appointment with a nurse-practioner at the emergency clinic that originally referred me to the program I’ve been trying to get into for the past month that apparently can’t actually help me.

That probably doesn’t make any sense. I must be drunk.

9

My sister had a similar issue when she went in for counselling in her late teens… except in her case, the shrink was convinced she was anorexic and/or bulimic, because she happened to mention that she didn’t have much of a taste for food in one of her counselling sessions following my parent’s divorce.

Duh. She was DEPRESSED. :rolleyes: I guess we should be thankful that the shrink’s personal agenda was eating disorders and not alcoholism… most 19 yr olds tend to binge-drink enough to look like abusers to a biased observer.

Please accept my permission to beat the shrink with a trout during your next session. She’s a lazy hack.

ETA: I see that you won’t have another session. If that’s the case, please do file a complaint. She needs a good talking to… god knows how many people’s records she’s ruining with her knee-jerk diagnosis.

10

You’re right! And Italy, France, Belgium, etc. It’s oppressive! It really is a “When did you stop beating your wife?” kind of approach…there is no right answer.

15 years ago, I stayed briefly in a homeless shelter because, well, I was homeless. 12-step meetings were mandatory for EVERYONE. They just assumed that you wouldn’t be there unless you were a drunk or a dope fiend. This is why my location says “in Denial”; it’s a joke made in stringent resistance to that kind of thing.

Oooooh, don’t start me! :eek:

11

Did you mention that you use the name of a Pogues album as your username on an internet message board? Association with the Pogues is an automatic indicator of substance abuse to most diagnostitians. :wink:

12

:dubious: Everyone I know would answer yes to this question. Hell, we’re young and poor; what else are we going to do?

13

I would answer yes as well. But that’s mostly because I don’t much care for social interactions so when I actually do go seek some out there’s usually alcohol involved.

14

Look up your states licensing agency and file a complaint. You shouldn’t get a diagnosis of alcohol abuse based on the answers to the questions you gave. The rebuttal is “I do not think you have done a thorough enough evaluation to make a substance abuse diagnosis.”

15

Let’s get to the facts here:

  1. Denial is a major warning sign of a problem. You exhibit multiple and adamant instances of denial in this thread. The denial impulse is so strong that you had to announce it loudly to a group of people you have never met in person. That is clearly an issue.

  2. You keep large quantities of alcohol horded in your house (i.e. “There’s a shelf full of beer in the fridge.”)

  3. You are proud of the fact that you can stay away from it. “I can stop any time I want to.”

  4. One day you will fall off the wagon and consume all of them at once due to built up addictive tension. Acute alcohol poising is likely accompanied by coma and maybe even death. How long that will be from now, we can’t know for sure. It could be weeks or maybe even months.

Looking at it from the outside, can’t you see why your counselor is worried about your problem and your very safety?

16

Or, y’know, an indication that the OP’s pissed that this counselor repeatedly tried to diagnose a serious condition that the OP did not, in fact, have. In high school I hardly ever ate lunch, due to habit and medication that suppressed my appetite, and I got fucking annoyed when people said I was anorexic.

The OP currently has a shelf of beer in the fridge., and hasn’t touched it in weeks. How large are your fridge shelves?

Well, yeah, most people take some pride in being able to restrict their consumption of certain foodstuffs that aren’t really very good for them.

17

Actually, the flag I saw was this;

Because when you are discussing substance abuse, most people don’t think of drinking tea as “the last time you had something to drink”.

I expect that the counselor thought you were telling the truth when you said, “about an hour ago”, and that you were talking about alcohol. Especially since you have a fairly long series of excuses for your drinking.

Maybe you are telling the truth about your drinking - I don’t know, and have no way to be sure. But you don’t come across as if you are. If you don’t mind my saying so.

Regards,
Shodan

18

Picking up where Captain Carrot left off.

This one is bullshit. Lots of people have stocked bars in their houses, and I doubt there are many people over 25 or so who just decide one day to drink the entire liquor cabinet.

I’ll agree with this statement. However, if that was one of the first questions in the substance abuse section, I can see how a person could construe that the doctor wanted to know if they had ingested any food or liquid that day. I think we need a bit more info on the situation before we can call the OP a liar.

19

Add Captain Carrot to the list of those in denial. Shagnasty has distilled the issue: 1+2+3 clearly implies 4, and I now dread leaving work tonight, as I not only have beers in the fridge, I’ve had a whole box full of hard liquor under the kitchen counter for almost 2 years now! :eek:

I can’t believe I didn’t snap before. I’m resigned that the only thing I can do is stop on the way home for icecubes for the inevitable series of triple ryes tonight.

20

You and me both, Nanoda! I have rum! Copious amounts of wine! And God knows what else!

(I keep thinking I hear a whooshing sound somewhere in this thread.)