Bob5789

Hello,
This is my first post here.
I am looking for help to understand what happened with my sister who sadly passed away two weeks ago.
Maybe if this is not the right place people could advise another thread forum.
The family is in shock as it was unexpected.
My sister has passed away at age 42, she had been drinking since her mid twenties.
She was sadly diagnosed with cancer 4/5 years ago, she also suffered with Addisons disease, and bouts of Addisons Crisis.
Up until a year ago she had a well paid job, house, car - a comfortable life in some respects.
But her drinking caused her to lose her job 12 months ago and she fell into quite heavy debt.
She seems to have just given up on her cancer treatments, I believe she was in pain - and had been slowly overdosing on Paramol and Paracetamol.

For years we knew some thing wasn't right, but it was only in the last few years did we get more of a picture of her addiction to alcohol, in fact it has only been since her death - with us picking through receipts and bank statements - has the true scale of her drinking become apparent.

As a family we were always very understanding of her, I in fact embarked to try and get a handle on what was going on in her life through calls to Al-anon, Mc Millaon and other help lines, who helped me draw up some sort of battle plan.
But my sister was very strong minded, and simply backed away at the first hint of any help.
Outside of the family she was getting some Psychiatric help and some councelling, and had tried AA, but I think she just got fed up with everyone poking her and advising her - she thought better and rejected all advice, and thought that she could just go on as she was.
She kept it all from us, me, her mum and dad, her employer (for many years until she was sacked).
Sadly though her body gave up, or so I assume.
I fear she died feeling shame at her redundancy, debt and alcohol addiction, just seems such a sad way to go.

None of our family has an alcohol issue, and so its hard for us to understand what she was/has done to herself.

She passed away on her own, no contact with friends, only her family offering care and attention in her last months/weeks.

Excuse my confused questions - but thats exactly what we are - just confused, how could my sister go down that route in life, end up drinking 3/4/5 bottles of wine over 24 hours, repeatedly for 2/3 days on the trott, then do a whole bottle of vodka at the end of it - then spending days being incredibly ill vomiting,then repeated after she recovered - a continuous cycle - - its almost like it was poison - but she demanded it like a normal person requires food and water.

How can a substance be so 'in demand' - yet end up crippling your life, and eventually causing your ultimate demise.

I dont think alcohol was 100% the cause of death (the coroner has yet to draw his conclusions), but that was the substance that played with her mind and took her off the straight and narrow.

If any one has direction for me to read up on, or words of wisdom I would be happy to hear.

Thanks