How to Deal With the Dual Diagnosis of Alcoholism & Tuberculosis

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Dr. David Thomas. I'm a practicing psychotherapist with the Whitford Thomas Group in Tampa, Florida here to discuss today how to deal with the dual diagnosis of alcoholism and tuberculosis. When we discuss alcoholism and tuberculosis first let's talk about tuberculosis. First of all tuberculosis is a bacteria infection and one acquires tuberculosis through breathing and that germ through the air so when we are talking about tuberculosis even though in modern day tuberculosis really is not the problem it used to be many years ago but the population we tend to see it still fairly prevail is in the population of more the indigent alcoholic or the indigent individuals who are alcohol dependent. So tuberculosis is a disease of the lung which often times gets spread through the rest of the organs through the circulatory system. So how do you prevent it and what is its connection with alcoholism? Well certainly when an individual is alcoholic or alcohol dependent especially in the severe cases more often than not their immune systems are depressed and as a result their ability to fight off infection and fight off disease is compromised or minimized so certainly when you are dealing with alcoholics and people who are alcohol dependent with people with tuberculosis I think they are going to be much more susceptible to acquiring the disease simply by the nature that their health is not in a more optimal state to fight off various different infections and disease. Certainly in the poor areas, poor communities where alcoholism is pretty prevalent they are just going to not pay attention to a lot of the health practices that many of us kind of might take for granted so the connection really is an aspect of the immune system being depressed or compromised. Hope this information has been helpful to you. I'm Dr. David Thomas from Tampa, Florida. Thank you."