Posted on 09/25/2023 8:53:59 PM PDT by Captain Peter Blood
We all have sad stories to tell occasionally and I have one.
I have a friend I known for well over 40 years and she has always been fun to be around and we have stayed in touch all this time on and off.
Until about a year ago I had no idea she was a committed, hard core, alcoholic. The last two years she had been talking about a decline in her health. She had taken the Covid vaccines and at least one booster and I was fearful this caused her to have some adverse effects.
But the surprise was a year ago when she saw another doctor she had been sent to because her PCP thought she needed to have her Gall Bladder out. In my opinion her PCP is incompetent for not being able to diagnose the fact she had Liver Cancer. The surgeon she saw looked at her test file and saw right away she Stage 4 Liver Cancer and that she needed to get treatment.
It was then she admitted she was a alcoholic to me. Now she had told a few years earlier she had a substance abuse problem and had been addicted to Benadryl and I now think she was drinking during that addiction also.
So she gets help and starts seeing doctors that hopefully can help her. She claimed she had seen the error of her ways and was committed to getting better and hopefully would be able to get on a Liver transplant list.
The thing was she never got any better, in fact she got worse. She could not put any weight on and is now skin and bones at 87 pounds. She claims she has a blood clot on her pancreas and just recently was diagnosed with two ulcer’s and the lining of her stomach has been destroyed by Alcohol abuse.
You see she never quit drinking, even with all she was told she could not do it. Three weeks ago she was in a auto accident, she hit someone from behind and fortunately no one was hurt and only her car had damage.
But the state police were involved because the accident happened on the Interstate. She claimed they did not have a field sobriety test kit, then she refused to take a blood test. Finally she was arrested and compelled to give a urine sample, results of which I don’t know yet.
I have caught her in several lies about the drinking, long story short ,she just never gave up alcohol. She is married and evidently her husband finally found out about it and her attitude was I will go get help at AA.
Sadly I believe we are well past any help from AA or anyone else. I feel she is too far gone and I have no doubt she will go back to drinking, presuming she quits at all.
On top of this I find out she is on Tramadol which is Opiate pain killer. The only reason I can think of for her to be on that is that her body is shutting down slowly and the pain will only get worse.
I frankly can’t see her being able to last for very long in this situation. I give her maybe 6 months, but that may be way too generous. No one knows how these things will go until they happen.
I just had my third anniversary of sobriety. I had a problem. With the help of God, family, and a book I read, I put down the booze and walked away for good.
I went to AA meetings and heard some awful stories. Some people struggle every minute of every day to keep from drinking. I am blessed to say that I’ve never had any desire at all to drink again once I made that decision to quit. I can go to parties or bars with friends and never be tempted. In fact, just the thought of drinking alcohol makes me feel ill.
I read Stop Drinking Now by Allen Carr (given to me by my daughter) and it was just so logical to me that I wondered why it took so long to see the light. It may not work for everyone but it certainly won’t hurt.
I have been down this road, and know just how you feel.
my kid married into a family of alcoholics- her hubby is working on staying away from booze but he managed to suck the life out of my beautiful girl in the last 20 years.
wish she would have left him a long time ago but it must be love.
His sister drank herself to death in 2020, at age of 36.
This family is FUBAR . I got no use for a drunk.
I should have written, “Why take the first drink?”
And they won't stop drinking until they see their own advantage in being sober.
After being sent to a mental hospital for evaluation, they placed me in a treatment center for alcoholism. That was in 1987, and I have not had a drink of alcohol since then. I have been able to start a family-raising three children, restore the relationships with my estranged family and friends, and I became a useful member of my community-which includes my employer and my church.
A couple years ago, I lost my oldest daughter to Covid, and the response from my family and friends was overwhelming. In spite of the pain of the grief, I did not attempt to dull my feeling with alcohol, but instead became even more prayerful, and sought a greater closeness to God.
Sadly, I don't know if I can offer much help for your friend, other than just passing along my experience that living a life of serving God and others is the most rewarding thing I have ever known, and no person has ever sunk so low that they cannot begin to do that today. I pray that you and your friend will be comforted by the love of God.
I’ve known a few “dry” (former?) alcoholics, and a couple of them that never got clean. Both of the latter died still drinking. The dry guys could all tell me the reason they got sober.
And therein lies the root cause of almost all addictions.
Yes, I realize there is physical addiction involved, no doubt about that, but there is also the emotional factor. Pain from trauma that someone is trying to deal with.
SOMETIMES going back and dealing with the root cause of the pain is the biggest help. Then there isn't the need to numb the pain.
While going through my brother's stuff, we found medical reports about mental health issues we never knew he had. And I am convinced that the root of it was our dad.
Long story but the pain inflicted on a child by a parent who is too hard on them damages a person in many ways for a lifetime unless they can see it and decide to appropriately deal with it.
Please get to an AA meeting. And then keep going.
Same as my mom (German) except she was 53. My dad (Irish) died a week before her from the same thing. Cirrhosis.
This was back in '77.
People with severe addiction problems generally just die young.
Make a list of all the negative things that alcohol does to you. ie: depression, sleep interference...whatever. Tape it to the fridge and liquor cabinet. Good luck.
I had many friends die at a young age, in their 20s, I drank starting young and continued until my 40s. I quit because I got tired of feeling like crap all the time. I had a friend that encouraged me and after 40 went dry. I’ve been alcohol free for 20 years.
My daughter should be dead or forever bed ridden except for the grace of God...
She currently has been sober for over a year... but recently said she doesn’t need AA anymore... I pray she succeeds...
I can only recommend attending Families Anonymous... they and my Christian brothers have given me a lot of strength... you need stay healthy for all your other loved ones...
I will pray for you and your friend.
I understand the chemical dependency. But if you had a parent with a alcohol problem, as a kid, make a vow to never touch the stuff. Cocaine is additive and people have to have it but if you don’t touch it, you never become addicted. Ditto alcohol. Nobody who has never taken a drink is an alcoholic.
At 25 I was a heavy drinker and it almost destroyed me.
At that point I gave my heart to Christ and am not even remotely tempted to drink again. It’s been over thirty three years now.
I know that some folks can handle it in moderation and rarely have long daily streaks of getting pickled.
I simply didn’t know how to do that.
I found my confidence in the fact that I was better at it than anyone I knew. Now, I simply put my confidence in Christ, and it has emboldened me in the things that matter the most.
“She told me that, that night, she prayed to God that her alcoholism be lifted or that her life be taken. When she said that prayer her alcoholism was lifted.”
Was an alcoholic for a bit over 16 years, and nearly at the bottom of the well having drunk my way down. An early morning dream which I attribute to our Heavenly Father cured me. That was it. I’d tried quitting drinking several times before, with the longest abstinence being about six weeks. But that dream...
Have been sober since that morning. My prayer is that every alcoholic could experience that dream.
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