Not everybody considers how many different kinds of health care there are. There is health care for everything from sudden, unexpected injuries (which is generally the domain of a hospital’s emergency room) all the way to illnesses which may not even be visible on the surface (which is generally the domain of an alcohol treatment center). The applications of health care are extremely varied, but the end goal is always the same; those who are sick must be made well again, and those who are hurt must be aided in healing. While there are 1,001 different parts of this goal, they all do have a few common variables.
Let us compare an alcohol treatment center to an emergency room. The first step is always going to be, diagnose the problem. An alcoholic who won’t admit to their alcoholism can never be effectively treated, just like an individual who breaks his arm during a bicycle injury, then refuses to have his broken arm treated and insists on trying to “tough it out.” It is extremely inefficient to treat the unwilling. Once the person has admitted to the problem and sought help, however, it becomes a matter of separating the patient from the source or cause of their injury.
If a foreign object were protruding from a person’s body, the object should obviously be removed, provided that doing so will not further endanger the person. In precisely the same way as the protrusion example, the alcoholic must be separated from their drink. And not only must they be separated from their drink, but also from their drinking friends. If a person remains in an injurious environment, whether they are threatened physically or via the encouragement of their “friends,” the injuries they have will be unable to heal.
Once the patient is removed from the injurious environment, a wise physician knows when nothing can be done but wait.
