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Physicians, like everybody else, can become sick, divorced, or chemically dependent. Some of the very virtues that make them good caregivers—emotional control, dedication, independent thinking, attention to detail, and above all a drive to do everything as faultlessly as possible—can lead them to neglect their own personal needs and involvement This poverty of close sustaining relationships usually precedes the increasingly awful loneliness of chemical dependency.
This book focuses on the unique problems that confront therapists dealing with health professionals' substance abuse and dependency. Doug Talbot is president of the American Academy of Addiction Medicine and a well-known expert in the care of addicted physicians He has treated hundreds of health care professionals at the Talbot-Marsh Recovery Center in Atlanta, Georgia. Daniel Angres is a cognitive-behavioural psychiatrist
By the time the addicted physician seeks definitive treatment, she has used and abused alcohol and other substances to alter mood and to tolerate frustration, generally over a period of several years The professional patient may be in all kinds of trouble but frequently is desperate to continue with her work. When the physician comes for therapy, he is usually in his early forties and often presents as a tense individual with marked mood fluctuations. The addicted physician frequently has self-medicated and now ambivalently seeks treatment because of complaints made to a professional regulating body, or threat of divorce. On deeper questioning, he also may have been increasingly in trouble physically, financially, and domestically over the past decade, without sustained or helpful intervention. Anaesthetists, pharmacists and those medical/surgical personnel who have access to narcotics and benzodiazepines in the acute care and pharmacy areas, are often more at risk than other health professionals.
Constitutional and environmental issues play a major role in chemical dependency and the form