drinker's remorse

A young man comes today saying he is profoundly depressed, to the point that he is considering "doing something" to himself. I know him quite well as someone who abuses all kinds of substances, though he favours opiates and alcohol. But I have never seen him in this abject state before. He tells me had to drink half a bottle of vodka this morning "to gee me up to come in here". Would he be finishing the bottle later today? I ask. Oh yes, definitely. I point out my difficulty; namely that here he is complaining of depression, while he is taking huge doses of a drug which is actually (despite the initial lift it confers)a potent depressant. He agrees with me that this is untenable.

So I start him on a "home detox" programme, giving him large doses of diazepam to protect him from the shakes, and more dangerously, the DTs, while for his part he promises not to drink. I'll see him again after 5 days, partly to make sure he's still alive.

COMMENT

Gordon's faux pas yesterday was amazing, for its stupidity and ineptness if nothing else. Now this is something for which I have oft criticised him in the past.(they say it never would have happened if Sarah had been there) But was it really so wrong? Mrs Duffy, God help her, voiced, apparently, the concerns of an entire nation when she expressed concern about the level of immigration in general and the influx of eastern Europeans in particular. But isn't blaming incomers for your problems and targeting a specific ethnic minority for your ire the very definition of bigotry? I'm sure in his heart Gordon would like to have pointed this out, but instead he made it even worse by eating the humblest of pies. Poor bugger. He's really had it now.