Patient X: Personal Experience

Patient X was a 45-year-old white male that other than constant alcohol consumption was in pretty good physical shape. He had been fired from his job about two years ago, and was unable to find any other work. As a result, he lost his high school sweetheart that he had been married to for 25 years. On our first encounter, he was unable to tell me full stories. He also would become angry and irrational to random stimulus. Patient X would then go on tangents about his life and stop half way through. His emotions would become all over the place. He stated, “I didn’t realize it would come to this. My whole seems to be dissolving all of a sudden. How does anyone handle this? Am I even worth it? I just like having a few drinks here and there. The drinks seem to make the pain disappear. The constant headaches happen and I have a few drinks and it finally allows me to be numb. I didn’t realize it would become this bad. I never saw myself as having a problem.” …show more content…
I asked patient X, “At what point did you feel like drinking was the solution?” He replied without a second to waste, “I thought she’d never leave me. We were always meant to be. I loved her since the second I saw her. It was such a beautiful day and I decided to come home early to surprise Lorna (*fake wife’s name) with flowers. The door was slightly cracked open, and I assumed it was because of the weather being so nice. I walked into the living room and saw clothes, both males and females, strung across the room. I yelled for her, only to hear scrambling from the bedroom. I hurried to her and before I knew it a male was running past me and out the door. I found her in the bed crying. Before I even got close to her, she was begging for forgiveness.” It seemed obvious where our starting point would