Stayingsassy

I end up working with someone who has end stage alcoholic cirrhosis.

This person was diagnosed two years ago and drank all the way through the diagnosis and also drank through 2+ years of AA meetings and sponsorship.

Don't wait until it's too late. Any time the addiction tells you there is more time to drink, it's lying. If your response to alcohol is a binge, you are on this path.

What a message for me today. Thank you, universe.

Briansy

Thanks Sassy, I've had a really crap day today full of irritability and frustration. It's 9.30 and I have gone to bed early to make it end. This post is another reinforcement of the message that drinking will only cause immense pain but I was seriously triggered this evening. And on top of that my cousin texted me to go for a pint with him - a ritual I used to love . Sigh, reset required, hoping for a long and restful sleep.

Stayingsassy

This person was sober for 15 years. Began drinking again three years ago. Right away got up to 3 bottles of wine a day, continued for 8 years. In 2015 diagnosed with alcoholic cirrhosis. For three years a lot of falls, bleeds, nausea, attempts at sobriety, increasing lies to medical providers, AA members, family members...because with each admit to ER she was at least .2 bal.

Lies and sickness and now dying at 62. The most significant lie however, is the one she told herself.

lessgravity

I was reflecting on some old posts of mine, from more than 5 years ago, while also reading some recent heart-breaking posts from another person on this site who hasn't righted their ship yet.

For many people, alcohol is a take it or leave it, a social lubricant, an aspect of life that doesn't dominate. For us, alcohol is a slow death, maybe quick, it's a poison in the mix, ruins, takes, destroys, inhibits, injures.

Thanks for the reminder Sassy.

Stayingsassy

I post this because I think on a gut level it is NOT believed that this will happen.

It's insanity to drink large amounts and assume you will be ok. You will not. Your body cannot take it. You may think with each sweet rush of relief after the first few you are finally ok with the world: you are not. That is your body dying.

You can deal with boredom or restlessness or ennui or sadness: this death and the years immediately preceding: you can not deal with.

I guarantee you that If you find yourself at the end of a three year bender with liver failure you will wish with 100% certainty that you had just learned to distract yourself through that boredom.

Stayingsassy

Also: your youth is not going to protect you.

Fastest growing cases of alcoholic liver failure right now: ages 22-35. Fact. Look it up.

If you know you have a problem deep down inside: QUIT NOW.

Just learn that long term sober life. It's a good life. It's different than a drinking life in a lot of ways, I'll concede that. But it's a life you CAN live and learn to adapt to. Don't continue to make mistakes until there is no point of return.

BullDog777

THIS is so important. I was one of those people who believed there was always one more bender in me.

That when I REALLY wanted to, I could get clean. For me, it was damned near too late.

I remember one of the doctors telling me he had no doubt that i could get drunk again, but if I did, I wouldn't live much longer.

I did an incredible amount of damage to my body. Liver, heart, pancreas and kidneys.

When I got clean, I had to go get evaluated every 3 months to monitor my vital organs. then it got spaced to every 6 months.

Tomorrow I have to go in again and get another 6 month eval. I hate doing it. I'm always terrified.

Sometimes I just sit back and wonder why I chose hell over happiness for so many years.

Stayingsassy

I'm sorry my statement above is incorrect: started drinking again 11 years ago at age 51. Diagnosed 3 years ago with cirrhosis. Hoped for a transplant but could never get to the six month requirement for sobriety.

So even if you have a long long sobriety, if you start again, there is zero guarantee that you'll be able to quit in time to regain health.

Stayingsassy

You are sober. I am sure you will be fine. Stay off sugar!

Yes. The "I'll just get sober again" excuse.

How do you really know that....

some people never make it back.

MrsLecter

This was scary to read but I appreciate you sharing it. I'm just over 7 months sober and so grateful to be off the drugs and booze. This post reminds me of family and friends still trapped in active addiction, experiencing awful physical consequences yet still continuing down the path.

Ill stay sober with you all today 💜

least

When I think of all the bad things that could have/would have happened if I kept drinking, I feel relief that I'm not doing that anymore.

Grungehead

After staying sober for over 6 years I relapsed for a year (off and on). It was a tumultuous time in my life and I was able to get sober again before things got too bad. After staying sober for another 7 years I once again ran into difficult times (heart surgery, complications with my sternum, lost job because I couldn't work for 5 months) and started drinking again. I think I must have believed that once things settled down I would just hop back on the sober train again. Well 8 years later I was drinking all day every day and contemplating suicide every morning as an alternative to drinking.

I really relate to stories about people staying sober for many years, relapsing and then struggling to get sober again. I'm very fortunate to have a 3rd chance at sobriety, and having over 5 years again I have finally learned that sober time does not make you immune from the hell of alcoholism if you decide to pick up a drink again. I'm absolutely certain that if I hadn't gotten sober when I did I would be in this woman's shoes if not dead already.

Stayingsassy

I think people really gloss over the experiences of people who relapsed after a long sobriety and scrabbled to get back at the very last minute: this may actually be more the norm.

Thanks for sharing bulldog and grungehead, I am glad you both made it back.

We must be ever vigilant and never take sobriety for granted, even years later.

Scary stuff.

Wholesome

Brain plasticity is real. I grew up playing piano, took it for years, and then I stopped playing when I discovered boys and drugs. Last fall I took it up again after like 25 years, and within a few months I'm playing like I've been playing for years.

It would be the same if I started drinking again. No matter how neglected those neural pathways may get, they never fully go away. Except it would be worse with drinking than it would be with playing the piano. Much as I love the piano I've never obsessed about it all day at work or played it late into the night so I was tired the next day for work. My drive for alcohol was way different from any other hobby I ever had.

That's why in my opinion lifetime permanent abstinence is the only way to go, because whatever "it" is, it's with me for life. I don't see it as a disease though, but as my brain doing what it's supposed to do.

ScottFromWI

I watched the husband of one of my coworkers literally drink himself to death as well. Both of his school aged kids and wife got to witness him turn yellow and eventually get taken to the ambulance to the hospital to die a week or so later. He kept drinking literally right up to the day he was hauled off to the ER. He was a nice guy too - very well liked by just about everyone around him.

Sobriety2018

Heart breaking.😢

soberlicious

Ahhh
crying reading your post and I'm generally a pretty stoic person.

This is excatly what happened to my sister. and you're right, stayingsassy, on the deathbed things look very different. My sister begged for just one more chance, but her body refused her this time. It just couldn't do it.

I've posted it before because I believe it to be true that our chances are not infinite. I've just never understood those words on such a deep visceral level until 3 months ago when I watched my sister die.

Stayingsassy

Oh sweetie I am so sorry. Hugs to you. Your sister is at peace now.

I feel terrible for this woman also who I saw again today. I guess in her last two years the withdrawals and anxiety were so terrible she just couldn't face sobriety. Bless her heart: it just got too hard. I'm sure it was for your sister too, may she rest in peace.

We will all do the best we can do. The message here is that there is a time when it is not too late: take the bull by the horns then, because there may not be another chance.

soberlicious

Thank you. Yes, the only solace we have now is that she isn't suffering anymore. What alcohol cirrhosis does to the body and mind is shocking...it's something I cannot even describe. It is heartbreaking.

I have so much grief, and so much anger that she squandered the chances along the way. I know I will eventually sort how I feel, but thus far it's been so hard as we've had many years of grieving her being lost to addiction even before the physical damage started to show.

Years ago when I was at my worst and almost died, she took care of my children while I was away at treatment. She was there every step of the way. Then years later she began drinking heavily. I couldn't make her see though. I couldn't save her. My family exhausted every possible way we knew, but we lost her in the end.

Absolutely and that's why I always tell people the time is now!! We never know when that very last chance is being used. It only took 7 years for my sister's body to become damaged beyond repair. People believe it can't happen, but it can.

Stayingsassy

You all did your very best to try to save her. In the end all any of us can do is save ourselves. We can lock people up in rehab facilities only for so long but then they are responsible for themselves. We live with the people we love, but mostly we live in our own minds and bodies and can feel very alone with ourselves at times, even if there are lots of people around to help. None of us truly knows what it's like to live in another person's mind or body. What we can tolerate, maybe others cannot and sometimes, people will die of their own hand.

she knew you loved her, she knew how hard you tried. It's good you can share your story now, it might save someone who would have otherwise crashed from their alcoholism.