Imagine you are an AOD counsellor working for an organisation that provides support and services for females with co-existing alcohol dependency and mental health needs. Mae is in her early 20s and gave birth to a baby girl five months ago. A few weeks after giving birth to her first child, she started having trouble falling asleep and would often feel inadequate about being a single mother. Around the same period, she started having negative thoughts such as wanting to abandon her child at the hospital or to “silence my daughter because she could not stop crying and screaming”. She also shared that sometimes she experiences difficulties concentrating when performing tasks – she forgot and left her child at the grocery store’s parking lot on a few occasions. Due to these events, Mae started consuming alcohol, which she claims that helps her to go to sleep faster and have a better sleep. She also shared that drinking alcohol helps to relieve her stress and not think about the guilt and inadequacy as an inexperienced single mother. Last week, Mae was involved in a near miss accident while driving to a store nearby her house. She was then taken to the
