Leon was a client referred to apas by his New Deal Advisor a few months ago. He seemed resistant to any suggestions of help and appeared very defensive.

He felt that his main problem with alcohol was that he could not control his anger when under the influence and this had lead to a number of offences related to violence and he seemed to have quite grandiose thought processes going on. His family were concerned that he would get himself killed one day through fighting.

During our weekly sessions his bravado subsided to reveal someone with very low self-esteem, coping the only way he knew how. It also became clear that he was actually very self-aware which gave us a very good starting point to work on. Using a variety of cognitive-behavioural techniques we were able to explore more appropriate coping mechanisms, rather than resorting to alcohol for escapism or anger and violence for emotional release.

He was soon able to recognize the links between his alcohol abuse and anger and has been able to control his drinking to within safe limits. This in turn has curbed his violent tendencies and he has not been in trouble for some time. Now that his emotions have stabilised he has been able to take stock of his life and decide where he goes from here.

He has goals in terms of work and living arrangements and is motivated to achieve these goals. He intends to make the most of his natural talents in computer science by directing his energy into gaining qualifications in this field.

He says he is very glad he was referred to apas. He had been expecting someone to just tell him what to do, judge him and nag at him, whereas he was pleasantly surprised to find someone who empathises - seems to understand where he is coming from and supports him in the decisions he has made.