IDENTIFICATION & DIAGNOSIS
Everyone who drinks is not an alcoholic. On the other hand, if a person continues drinking, just to get drunk, he might be suffering from alcoholism. There is also another symptom of alcoholism, which is known as dual diagnosis, which means that a person who is having many illnesses, which are brought about through substance abuse, may suffer from this double trouble. It is also caused concurrent disorders, which are naturally brought about by substance abuse for a long while.
An individual who is an alcoholic is going to suffer psychologically, physically, mentally, socially, as well as spiritually. He will want to be alone and shun the presence of others, because he is feeling guilty about his addiction to alcohol. He might also reach the stage of belligerence and violence, because he is under the impression that everybody dislikes him. And after that comes the state of morbidity and self-pity when he is quite certain that nobody loves him. This is a vicious circle. Then there is another stage when he is going to go into self-denial.
Of course, he is not suffering from a problem. Oh, he just does the little bit of social drinking. He can stop drinking tomorrow. He promises that he will stop drinking tomorrow. He has the will power to stop drinking tomorrow and so on and so forth. When the patient goes into rehabilitation, you might be surprised that he has even more problems in the shape of concurrent disorders. Just imagining that he has some, other disorder apart from alcoholism is enough to make a man psychologically and psychosomatically disturbed. That is why doctors have to be very careful about telling the patient all about his disorder(s) and the ensuing treatments.