Unfair blame and a young Alcoholic
We finally hit the road today at 8am - an hour and a half late. My crewmate has to travel quite a distance to get to work, and had set his alarm for 4am for a 6.30am start. He swears blind he didn't hear the alarm and can't remember his wife waking him and telling him the alarm went off. He says it's her fault he was late cos she didn't make him get up!
We arranged to change our shift time to 0800 til 2000 so we didn't lose any hours overtime, plus we'd still work the same amount of time we'd already agreed to work.
During the early afternoon, we got a call to go to a 25 year old lady who had fainted in the street.
On questioning, it was discovered that she was on her way to a GP appointment to try to arrange a referral to a detox clinic to help her come off alcohol. She said she'd had about eight drinks today in a mixture of wine and beer. She should have been completely smashed, but she was managing to talk in completely coherant sentences, was alert and knew where she was.
We did the obligatory blood pressure checks, and checked her blood sugar level to make sure that wasn't the cause of the faint. We couldn't find anything much wrong with her, so we took her to her GP surgery so she could keep her appointment.
While my crewmate was talking to the GP to make sure they were happy to see her and didn't want us to take her to hospital, I did some probing about the drinking. She admitted she knew she had a problem, she knew what had driven her to drink, which was what she described as the usual relationship problems, money problems etc. She said that these were the sort of problems that other coped with easily.
I reassured her that there were a great many people who turned to drink with those sort of problems - she wasn't the first, and she wouldn't be the last. I congratulated her on recognising she had a problem, and for wanting to do something about it.
She then told me she had an Arts degree, and was just completing a Law degree.
This is one young self-confessed alcoholic who I do believe will manage to break her drink problem. She certainly seems to have the determination to do so, and I wish her the best of luck.
We arranged to change our shift time to 0800 til 2000 so we didn't lose any hours overtime, plus we'd still work the same amount of time we'd already agreed to work.
During the early afternoon, we got a call to go to a 25 year old lady who had fainted in the street.
On questioning, it was discovered that she was on her way to a GP appointment to try to arrange a referral to a detox clinic to help her come off alcohol. She said she'd had about eight drinks today in a mixture of wine and beer. She should have been completely smashed, but she was managing to talk in completely coherant sentences, was alert and knew where she was.
We did the obligatory blood pressure checks, and checked her blood sugar level to make sure that wasn't the cause of the faint. We couldn't find anything much wrong with her, so we took her to her GP surgery so she could keep her appointment.
While my crewmate was talking to the GP to make sure they were happy to see her and didn't want us to take her to hospital, I did some probing about the drinking. She admitted she knew she had a problem, she knew what had driven her to drink, which was what she described as the usual relationship problems, money problems etc. She said that these were the sort of problems that other coped with easily.
I reassured her that there were a great many people who turned to drink with those sort of problems - she wasn't the first, and she wouldn't be the last. I congratulated her on recognising she had a problem, and for wanting to do something about it.
She then told me she had an Arts degree, and was just completing a Law degree.
This is one young self-confessed alcoholic who I do believe will manage to break her drink problem. She certainly seems to have the determination to do so, and I wish her the best of luck.
written on the PRF by Steve at 9:35 pm
2 Comments:
This reminds me of the days when I used to ride as a volunteer EMT.
Love your entries. They bring back all sorts of memories.
Annalisa
I hope you realise that what you said to that woman very possibly is something she will bring to mind when she is recovering which will give her strength.
A lot of people think talk is cheap these days and don't realise how sometimes the smallest encouragment or kind word is the difference between life and death, misery and the light at the end of the tunnel.
You're a good person. Well done. :)
x
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