Anxiety and Alcoholism

I used to specialise in anxiety disorders as well as addiction. I was asked to see a man with severe anxiety who had agrophobic wouldn't go outside his house. He said the only way to get AA is to drink six cans of special brew because otherwise I just couldn't cope with the anxiety. In the end he was dying as a result of self-medicating for several decades with alcohol when he had a perfectly treatable anxiety disorder. The big problem we have in the UK today is that we've separated addiction services from mental health services. We need much more joined up and maybe over 50% of them have some alcohol or drink problem. You need to treat both together because