my Stepdad past away 4 years ago from it. It absolutely consumed him. He never would take that step to GO get help at a treatment center.
I never really realized just how deadly it can be till i started to sober up. It is a terrible viscous cycle that has to be broken. People do go all there lives never breaking it. failing there children friends parents etc... Its like the final let down no pun intended.
Once the cycle is broken. once the daily routine of consumption gets interupted and you can muster up enough strength in you to keep it interrupted till that becomes your new routine. Then you start to get a bit of control over this beast and your able to more easily say No I'm not doing that. I'm not screwing myself like that i've had too many nice sober days i've worked too hard i've come to far I'm not gonna F it up now.
then you no longer have to worry about being the guy who let everyone down with the finaly let down etc..
I know one person specificly whos parent passed on from this sort of stuff. I'm sure he feels rather cheated. Sure woulda been nice to see his mother beat it and still be here but that was not in the cards.
The one thing though about people who have passed from this terrible disease is in there passing there able to help send the rest of us a rather strong message of the importance of quiting etc.. so its not a total loss by any means.