Friend has cirrhosis - there but for the grace of ...
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Join Date: May 2019
Location: UK
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Friend has cirrhosis - there but for the grace of ...
Friend of mine, 10 years older, overweight and heavy drinker was recently diagnosed with cirrhosis. His wife took pictures, and the poor guy looks pregnant with the fluid (ascites) build up. This all happened a bit suddenly. He cannot really walk and has had to have disability aids installed throughout his house.
I do not know the next stage, maybe he will need a transplant.
If he had given up alcohol maybe five years ago, he might have got away with it. I had a fatty liver which went quickly when I stopped drinking. That condition is serious but reversible, unlike cirrhosis.
It shook me up a bit. As I said above, I previously had a fatty liver so the chances are I would have developed cirrhosis in another five years, maybe two.
This is tragic stuff, folks. His wife is now his full-time carer. She wanted him to stop drinking, but he never did.
Please be careful as this is how it may all end.
I do not know the next stage, maybe he will need a transplant.
If he had given up alcohol maybe five years ago, he might have got away with it. I had a fatty liver which went quickly when I stopped drinking. That condition is serious but reversible, unlike cirrhosis.
It shook me up a bit. As I said above, I previously had a fatty liver so the chances are I would have developed cirrhosis in another five years, maybe two.
This is tragic stuff, folks. His wife is now his full-time carer. She wanted him to stop drinking, but he never did.
Please be careful as this is how it may all end.
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Join Date: May 2014
Location: Kerry, Ireland
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Sorry to hear about your friend and you're right, it is there for all of us if we don't look after ourselves. It's really incredible the power of addiction when you know that you'll end like that but yet you keep on drinking 
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Sad, yes, but I am more shaken up to think it could have been me in three to five years time. Now this guy is sick, I bet he wishes he stopped drinking. There really are no symptoms of liver disease until things become irreversible.
But anyone reading who thinks it is too late to quit, that is never the case. Even this guy has options now he has quit drinking. I mentioned I had a fatty liver, and this was totally cured, and all I had to do was stop drinking.
But anyone reading who thinks it is too late to quit, that is never the case. Even this guy has options now he has quit drinking. I mentioned I had a fatty liver, and this was totally cured, and all I had to do was stop drinking.
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Join Date: Aug 2019
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Yes, there but for the grace of God... So sorry for your friend and his wife as well.
A factor in my decision to abstain from alcohol is that my ALT liver enzyme is "mildly" elevated ("mildly" per my doctor, who attributed it to Lipitor, but I know better). My ferritin level is also up, and I found that is also associated with alcohol. I am hopeful that blood work down the line will show these becoming normal based on abstaining and losing weight.
A factor in my decision to abstain from alcohol is that my ALT liver enzyme is "mildly" elevated ("mildly" per my doctor, who attributed it to Lipitor, but I know better). My ferritin level is also up, and I found that is also associated with alcohol. I am hopeful that blood work down the line will show these becoming normal based on abstaining and losing weight.
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Join Date: Mar 2015
Location: St.Petersburg, FL.
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I'm sorry for your friend's illness, Hodd. Our bodies are resilient and have amazing power to heal, but eventually you will get to that point of no return. it is def "there but for the grace of God goes me." I had health issues like peripheral neuropathy in my hands and feet that went away once I had some sustained sobriety, along with high liver enzymes, but amazingly no lasting damage. I wish you and your friend the best. It's painful to see this.
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Join Date: May 2019
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My wife has never been interested in alcohol so she probably was not aware of the long-term health effects even though she never liked my drinking. But she has been surprisingly shaken up by the way this guy has ended up. She even said to me I must be glad I quit drinking! She has started to realise that she would have been nursing me in 5 to 10 years time with cirrhosis if I carried on.
I really do feel I dodged a whole magazine of bullets by quitting. It was pretty horrible to quit, but looking back it was only a few weeks of anxiety and insomnia when I quit. It really does make me sad when people on here talk about getting to a few weeks and relapsing. Get through those first few weeks, accept you will never drink again, get rid of alcohol in the house, have no rewards or just the one and you will avoid a lot of pain for you and your loved ones.
I really do feel I dodged a whole magazine of bullets by quitting. It was pretty horrible to quit, but looking back it was only a few weeks of anxiety and insomnia when I quit. It really does make me sad when people on here talk about getting to a few weeks and relapsing. Get through those first few weeks, accept you will never drink again, get rid of alcohol in the house, have no rewards or just the one and you will avoid a lot of pain for you and your loved ones.
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Join Date: Dec 2019
Posts: 2,426
You did dodge a bullet or two Hodd. I'm happy for you. If you think about it, there is that one drink that makes things irreversible, so let's not trifle with that and test it. It exists. It is a certainty. In a million drinks over a 30 year timeline, there is that one that does it. Nobody could ever tell us which one it was, but it is there in our past or in our future. Those things are certain.
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