Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- A note on the fourth edition
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Background to understanding
- 1 The history of treatment for drinking problems
- 2 Causes of drinking problems
- 3 Alcohol as a drug
- 4 The alcohol dependence syndrome
- 5 Drinking problems and the family
- 6 Social complications of drinking
- 7 Drinking problems as cause of neuropsychiatric disorders
- 8 Alcohol problems and psychiatric co-morbidity
- 9 Alcohol and other drug problems
- 10 Physical complications of excessive drinking
- 11 Women with drinking problems
- 12 Some special presentations
- 13 Drinking problems and the life course
- Part II Screening, assessment and treatment
- Author index
- Subject index
- References
9 - Alcohol and other drug problems
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- A note on the fourth edition
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Background to understanding
- 1 The history of treatment for drinking problems
- 2 Causes of drinking problems
- 3 Alcohol as a drug
- 4 The alcohol dependence syndrome
- 5 Drinking problems and the family
- 6 Social complications of drinking
- 7 Drinking problems as cause of neuropsychiatric disorders
- 8 Alcohol problems and psychiatric co-morbidity
- 9 Alcohol and other drug problems
- 10 Physical complications of excessive drinking
- 11 Women with drinking problems
- 12 Some special presentations
- 13 Drinking problems and the life course
- Part II Screening, assessment and treatment
- Author index
- Subject index
- References
Summary
‘Chemical dependence’
In many countries the contemporary pattern of substance misuse, particularly in individuals under the age of 40, is of multiple substances. Drug and alcohol problems may occur either concurrently or as problems which develop in sequence. The patterns of relationship which can exist between the use of different types of mind-acting chemical are many and the following case extract illustrates one variation on this theme.
The patient was a successful and wealthy entrepreneur aged 35. His working day was lived at a great pitch of tension and every evening he would go out to restaurants and night clubs and get through a lot of alcohol. He would on average drink a couple of bottles of wine and up to a dozen double vodkas before becoming, in his terms, ‘pretty incoherent’. He was beginning to feel ‘dreadful, sick, sweaty’ on most mornings and would often be unable to remember how he had reached his bed. Cocaine then began to be available in his social circle and before long he discovered that this drug appeared to provide an antidote to some of the unwanted effects of alcohol. For instance, if he snorted (sniffed) cocaine a few times during the evening, ‘it lifted me up, I could go on drinking, it stopped me passing-out with the alcohol’. He also found that a snort or two of cocaine helped to alleviate the unpleasant early-morning symptoms caused by the previous night's drinking. Within a few months he progressed from snorting to free-basing (inhaling) cocaine, and his cocaine use rapidly and disastrously went out of control.[…]
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Treatment of Drinking ProblemsA Guide for the Helping Professions, pp. 133 - 146Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003