This is about a story of a man, let’s name him Natarajan, who was an alcoholic. With his regular drinking habit, the man had made his liver so bad that he had developed liver cirrhosis as a result. As a responsible surgeon, I mostly resort to gently bashing my patients who have ailments due to their drinking habits. Old habits die hard and that is what I did that day when the said patient walked in.
Natarajan walked in with his wife that day with a bunch of reports. The reports were clearly pointing to the fact that his liver was failing as it was almost in the cirrhosis stage. As a chronic alcoholic, he was solely responsible for his condition. I turned to Natarajan and his wife only to start gently lecturing about how external conditions (read as family conditions) influence alcoholism and how they should sort the differences whatsoever they have mutually. This I said can have a favorable effect on curtailing the drinking habit and can go a long way in keeping his liver much better than the current condition.
In my advice, I assumed that Natarajan was having his drinking habit for many years and I was shocked to hear from his wife that he was actually a teetotaller earlier and that he had developed the habit of taking alcohol only a year before. To my utter dismay, the couple started crying and for a minute I could not comprehend what was going on.
Natarajan opened up and started narrating the story behind his sudden alcoholism. They both had a son (only offspring in the family) from their marriage who had transformed into a transgender only to leave them. He sobbed saying that they hailed from a respected family and this act of their son was a matter of ridicule in their extended family. Unable to bear the psychological trauma, Natarajan had resorted to taking alcohol.
After hearing their side of the story, I was pretty shocked and kept wondering how the turn of events can have a bearing on people’s lives. I wondered if my habit of resorting to gently bashing people who are into alcohol is right indeed. After all, who am I to judge?