How to Tell Your Doctor You Injured Yourself While Drinking

Sustaining an injury while drinking is something that most alcohol abusers or alcohol addicts are familiar with. At one point or another every alcoholic is going to stumble, trip, fall or get behind the wheel of a car while under the influence. Alcohol numbs your senses, your sense of balance and your ability to make decisions. This can result in an injury to yourself or to someone around you. It is important to explain to medical professionals that you have been drinking and that the drinking is to blame for your injury.

How to Discuss Drinking with Your Doctor

If the doctors treating your injuries ask how you injured yourself, your first instinct is going to be to lie about how you got hurt. Failing to tell the truth to medical professionals can have serious consequences such as the following:

• If you were injured while drunk, you may have sustained a more serious injury that you were initially aware of. A head injury while drinking could be significantly worse because of the blood thinning effects of alcohol. This could mean your bump on the head is more than a bruise and is actually a brain injury, brain bleed or concussion.
• If you are not honest with medical professionals, they will not be able to provide you with the correct course of treatment for your injury. This could cause them to miss the signs of a serious condition, simply because they don’t know to look for it.
• If you are ashamed to talk to doctors about alcoholism, you should realize that you have accomplished two important steps already. You have recognized that you need help for alcoholism and you have recognized that your alcohol use is not normal.

Open up to the medical professionals who are treating you. You are not going to receive ridicule or negativity from them; doctors are trained to handle injuries and guide patients in the right direction.

Finding Help for Alcohol Abuse

Call our toll-free helpline to get the alcohol abuse or addiction help that you need. Opening up a dialogue with your doctor is a great step in the right direction. We can help take further positive steps towards wellness. We can even help you arrange insurance coverage for rehab if needed.
We are here 24 hours a day, and all calls are completely confidential. Avoid the next injury and take control of your life. We are waiting to help.