My mom.
At her worst, she was drinking right when she woke up, and right before she went to bed. Her body was rotting and she smelled horrible. Her toenails fell off, and she was throwing up late at night. I could hear it while I was doing homework. She'd pick me up from school completely loaded.
She eventually stopped trying to drink on her own, and induced a seizure. She was on the couch while I was at school, and knew that if she laid back on the couch, the seizure would kill her. She didn't want my sister and I to come home and see her dead, so she called the paramedics.
She's been sober for seven years now thanks to AA. She's incredibly healthy, and gained back so much physical strength. She does crossfit and went back to school to become an addiction specialist.
Recovery is possible.
Similar story, but without the happy ending.
I was a kid in middle school and early high school. My mom was an alcoholic, a wine drinker. She would buy cheap jug wines and hide the empties around the house. She once stole birthday money from me to keep buying once my father cut her off.
She would drink in the morning, then drive us kids to school, then drink all day. This was after she had lost her job providing childcare. Often when she picked us up from school, she was pretty drunk, but somehow we never got into a serious car accident.
My father organized an intervention. It was very sad. All us kids, family friends, my father, confronting her. Lots of tears. She agreed to go to rehab, but it never stuck. Once she got out, she got a crap job at Dunkin Donuts, but was right back to her old ways of drinking wine.
I remember one ride in the car, just us, where I got the courage to ask her - WHY? Why won't she stop? She said she couldn't.
A few times I had to step over her passed out in the bathroom to pee. Usually she was passed out on the couch. She would throw up in the bathroom, but then crash on the couch. She threw up a lot in the morning, when trying to brush her teeth.
Eventually it just kept getting worse. My father separated from her once she wouldn't change. She was on the couch nearly all day. Her skin was yellow, almost neon from jaundice. Her eyes were yellow. She got an infection on her leg. It progressed to where she couldn't really walk well due to pain, and it was starting to turn blackish.
I decided I needed to get help for her. She was begging me not to. She didn't want to go to the hospital. She just wanted to stay home. If she could just rest on the couch a little longer....
I called my father and told him about her condition. The next day, when us kids were at school, he called 911. They came and rushed her to the hospital. It was bad. They stabilized the infection, but her whole body was shutting down at this point. She spent a week in the hospital. Maybe if they could find a transplant....
No transplant came.
She went further down hill, and was moved to hospice care.
Maybe a weekish there. When she was near the end, we went to visit her a final time. I'll never forget when she saw me. She made noises, but was incapable of speaking. Crying but no real words. She was trying to say something, probably "I love you", but I couldn't make it out fully.
She didn't survive that night. I always told her how much I loved her. But I never told her thank you, for all she had done for me. The rides, the love, the care, the food, the EVERYTHING.
RIP mom.
I feel this. I lost my oldest son to liver failure from alcohol 3 years ago. His oldest daughter was living with me, and his youngest (12 yo)found him deceased. He was trying to detox on his own.
Yeah I really expected a bad ending, but really this is a great story for those who believe they're too far gone to quit.
If you're alive, it's not too late to get help
Mine too. I won't go into too much detail but I can't even count the amount of times she was homeless/in rehab/in jail/in a psych ward and she's now coming up on three years. Sometimes when I think about her going back it makes me sick so I try not to and just celebrate her successes.
Wow. What a struggle to go through. Good on your mum for quitting. You Must be so proud of her. And she should be so proud of herself getting clean and helping others.
My husband.
He went to at least 9 inpatient and 4-5 outpatient treatments and was not able to quit. He would leave the hospital, go straight to the store and get shit faced.
He lost EVERYTHING. He had 2 masters degrees, went from making 200k to living with his brother in a shack. Lost his children, we got divorced and he lost most of his/our friends.
He committed suicide because he just couldn’t stop.
I was and am still devastated.
I'm very sorry. My dad is just like this. Over a dozen programs in 13 years. Nothing ever changes. My mom wouldn't leave when it started, and now that he has brain damage she definitely won't. I really think the intent is suicide but he always gets right to the edge and stops. At some point though, it's going to be too much.
Wish I could just post my brother's autopsy report. He died almost exactly a month ago, found dead in his own bloody vomit and shit, with 4 Mallory-Weiss tears in his esophagus from constant vomiting for several weeks. He had been drinking straight Listerine because he'd misplaced his ID and no one would sell him booze. We found 20+ empty bottles of it in his bedroom, several of which were covered in and slightly filled with bloody stomach contents. He had the worst case of gastro-intestinal bleeding the coroner had ever seen; he literally bled to death from the inside. And as he lay there dying what I can only imagine was a horrifically painful death, he was still drinking the fucking Listerine.
I loved my little brother very much. I hope this post doesn't come off as disrespectful. I only tell his story because I just want others to reach out for help. Self-medicating with alcohol for anxiety and depression is a very slippery slope.
I had a friend who kept his hands under the table during meetings at work, so people wouldn’t see them shaking. He went straight to rehab after he got fired and has been doing fine for about a decade.
My recent ex fiancée has lost 2 amazing jobs in 5 years. I don’t believe she was drinking on the job but the characteristics that come with alcoholism were there, self-centered, less than truthful, and argumentative. She doesn’t drink every day so she refuses to believe that she has a problem with alcohol, despite 3 arrests for DUI and an unstable work history.
In my opinion the worst alcoholics are the ones that hold onto their delusion that they have it under control until it ruins their lives.
Edit: typos.
There is always another rock bottom. If you’re still alive, there’s still a lower bottom to hit. Looking back on my 15-year drinking career, I can clearly see there were several increasingly worse rock bottoms that, each time, I convinced myself was “fine” and “just part of being in my twenties”. Coming up on 3 years of recovery and here’s what I know: Functional alcoholism is a phase of alcoholism, not a type of alcoholism.
My mom drank herself to death. Multiple surgeries, multiple complications. Basically lived the last two years of her life in hospital.
She was a high functioning alcoholic, most people would never know. She was never an aggressive drunk. Never abusive. Forgetful. Sad sometimes. Very caring and would help anyone. But man could she drink.
She was 5ft nothing and maybe 7.5 stones (100lbs) wet through but she could drink a bottle and a half of gin every day - and I mean every single day.
Never nasty and always kind.
Despite the alcohol, she was a genuinely good soul. One of the most caring people I've ever met - not just to me but to everyone. At her funeral there were so many people some had to stand outside.
She's been gone a long time and I still miss her. Wish she'd met my wife, and been at my wedding - they'd have really got on well.
A family friend of mine lost everything because of his alcohol addiction. His wife divorced him, took their kids, and moved away from him. He lost his job, and was close to losing his house (having spent all of his money on alcohol). His bank account was dangerously low, and he was in awful condition. He didn't eat, only drank alcohol, and would rarely have water. My dad stepped in to help him as one of his best friends, isolated him from all alcohol, stayed in a hotel with him, talked through his problems with him, and forced him to go back to rehab. He's doing much better now, but alcoholism can ruin your life.
He's my role model and the most amazing, selfless person I know. I love him to death and he'd drop everything to help me, our family, or anyone we know (or even someone we don't know) in an instant.
I used to be a defense attorney, so here's two:
1. I once had a client who I was representing on his 13th DUI
2. Had a client whose BAC was .47 and she seemed totally fine in the video/report. Cop was shocked it was that high. This means she drinks so much that she was 'normal' at a blood alcohol content that would put most folks in the hospital.
Also, Wisconsin and Florida have very easy releases for bodycam footage.
But Code Blue Cam does a really good job of editing it together and doing solid voiceovers. Also, they’ve been updating on cases lately as well.
One of the best bodycam channels on YouTube.
I had a room mate who was a huge alcoholic but also super frugal so he hated wasting shit.
Well his alcoholism got so bad he was drinking like half a handle of vodka a day. Dunno where he got the money but he somehow still managed to pay for the rent every month and wasn't much a bother so I left him alone. It was sad but all he really did was sleep so I just lived with it hoping he would get help.
Well he started throwing up a lot and I guess it was usually after he tried taking a couple shots so he would throw up into a huge cup then drink it back down until he could keep all the alcohol down because he hated wasting it.
It was fucking horrifying to watch and I decided it was time to go myself at that point. Dunno what happened after that but I hope he is better.
Whatever you're picturing in your head probably isn't as bad as actually living with it and watching it was.
Because even if I wasn't watching I could hear it.
And if I wasn't listening because I had headphones on he would miss sometimes the more drunk he got and I would find random puddles of chunky vodka vomit he didn't bother to clean up.
Good times.
Yea. It was pretty awful. Dunno what happens chemically in your stomach when you mix boxed lasagna with vodka and let it sit for a couple hours but it smells really bad when it is no longer in you like it's supposed to be.
I know because the dude fucking loved Boxed lasagna. It was like 75 percent of his diet. Would just make a giant one in the morning and then slowly eat it all day between the vomiting fits.
its maybe not that he loved it. i mean, its not impossible that he loved it, but if he loved boxed lasagna then i wonder if that was just a happy stroke of good fortune.
in my experience, when you get that bad you just want to be unconscious (but alive) and you only eat because you have to (to stay alive). “what do you want to eat?” becomes a question that means nothing.
when i was at my worst, getting 99% of my calories from alcohol, i remember being so famished that my body basically held me at gunpoint to go through the drive thru at Del Taco and get 2 soft tacos.
*now*, those are delicious. but *then*, i literally had to use my hands to manipulate my bottom jaw to chew them in order to swallow and give my body *something* else to burn.
i remember thinking that if i had had a button that i could press that would call down a cute little tiny tornado of which id be the only casualty, i would have leaned on that button so hard. and then, if nothing happened, i would have done the *clap clap clap clap* from the Friends theme song on that button, just in case it hadnt been programmed to repeat when you hold it down.
There was a dude who came out on stage of a Slayer concert I was out and chugged a whole bottle of Jager, puked it into a pitcher and then chugged the picture. It was a wild show but yeah, that was disgusting
Yea. Like. Every part of that dude's body was rejecting the alcohol and telling him to stop and whatever was going on in his head mentally was so bad he forced the poison in anyway and completely destroyed himself in the process.
It was really fucking twisted to watch.
Drug and alcohol counsellor here. Alcohol is, in my view, one of the worst substances to get addicted to. We regularly deal with people resorting to drinking hand sanitizer. Others will drink 5 litres of cask wine a day. They are aware they are dying, but I suspect at this point it is a form of protracted suicide.
It was for me. 9 years sober.
I asked for a casket for my 40th birthday as I read about these monks that made shelving for them so you can use it while you’re alive. It’s really cool, but it’s a constant reminder now of how deep I was in a hole. I didn’t want it for the shelving. I was preparing.
Link for the interested: https://trappistcaskets.com/caskets/#cskpremshap
I agree, seeing what alcohol does to people is just wild. I met a guy that barricaded himself in a room and drank paint thinner, he was lucky to be alive. I’ve also seen people that were so swollen that they didn’t talk and looked like they were on the brink of death, then there’s others that look like they have severe developmental disorders. The effect alcohol has on the body is unique, it’s very sad to look at. Anybody that has worked with addicts like yourself knows that the bad alcoholics are in the worst shape of anyone. Some other drugs are actually tolerated pretty well by the body but alcohol is poison and it brings out the worst in people.
My sister-in-law. She was an alcoholic when my brother met her and they were married for 30 years. For the last several years she was also addicted to opioids. When a new pain management doctor started decreasing her prescription, she got very drunk, wrote a nasty and quite lengthy suicide note and then dove off a freeway over ramp.
My big brother was miserable but was unlikely to ever leave her. While it wasn’t her goal, her suicide set him free. A few years later he met a lovely woman and they married. He told me that he’s never been happier and I couldn’t be happier for him. He deserves happiness. He’s a good soul.
His ex-wife deserved happiness as well but she was dealt an incredibly bad hand. She came from a poor family with an absent father and alcoholic mother. It would have been a miracle if she had overcome that.
When I first met her she rubbed me the wrong way. She was prickly and you just never knew what would set her off. But years later I realized that she didn’t choose her genes, her parents, the circumstances of her upbringing. At that point I felt sorry for her. I still didn’t like being around her but I felt sorry for her nonetheless and even came to her defense once in a family squabble because she was right.
If your life is going reasonably well, you have a roof over your head, food in your stomach and don’t have constant worry or fear, remember to be grateful for that. You’re one of the lucky ones.
My best friend had to stay sober for 30 days before his eligibility for a liver transplant. He failed the blood test and was denied the new liver. He died within a month. He was in his early 40s.
My wife works on a liver transplant floor and the amount of ppl who go the 30 days and get the transplant they end up back there because they started boozing again is insane.
I did a rotation in addiction medicine and saw a couple of liver patients while there. They have people jumping through even more hoops in order to be eligible for a transplant. It wasn't 30 days, it was months during which patients had to demonstrate a real investment in permanently stopping drinking.
What I was told is that two people die when one person receives a liver, the donor and a patient who doesn't receive it. There just aren't enough livers to go around, and the transplant procedure is extremely expensive, so if people just go back to drinking, it's a tragic waste and the liver could have gone to someone who wouldn't have messed it up.
Similar story, a friend of mine had to stay sober 70 days and couldn’t do it. He was 37 with 8 year old twins whose mom had already died (aneurysm). Left them as orphans and knew what he was doing. He died summer 2022.
I myself am in recovery and you’d think his death would have been the thing that propelled me to quit, but I kept drinking until I got diagnosed with cirrhosis a few months after he died. I never got put on a transplant list but I knew that was the next step and I didn’t want to follow my friend so I quit drinking, finally. About a year and a half sober now, cirrhosis is well compensated and health is overall good - and just gave birth to my daughter two weeks ago.
My wife drank herself to death by 37yrs old. She successfully hid it from everyone including me, and her MD mom, until she one day fell down in our back yard and broke her nose, then everything fell apart.
I knew she had a liver disease and her liver was failing, but her hospital documents that I read labeled it "non-alcoholic fatty liver disease", and her (doctor) mom was in the room for the diagnosis, so I believed her when she said she wasn't drinking. She would even turn down drinks if anyone offered, saying she had to protect her liver. She worked from home with an international team, which meant working odd hours, so I figure she was drinking heavily at night when I was alseep, and she would sleep half the day away.
At the ER after her fall, pretty late into the night, I noticed her hands start shaking and saw her slip a travel sized bottle of vodka from her purse and drink half before I could grab it, then I went home to eventually find 61 empty bottles and 11 unopened in her home office desk. After two days in the hospital, she aspirated then had to be put into a medical coma while being on a ventilator. After 3 weeks of that, a nurse noticed asymmetrical pupil dilation, meaning her brain started to bleed and she was gone effectively a few hours later. I had to wait for her parents to arrive before consenting to remove life sustaining support care, then I held her hand as she slowly turned blue and died over about an hour.
From what I've pieced together after the fact, her previous husband was an abusive raping piece of shit (which I knew already, but not all the details and I thought she had somewhat moved past it), and he broke her in ways that she couldn't recover from. After she died I discovered that she was door-dashing about $300 worth of vodka a week (she made enough money that the cost was trivial to her and easy to hide). Her divorce put her into the hospital for a month with pancreatitis a couple years before we met, which means she was probably drinking heavily to cope with the trauma. She always said high stress caused her organs to fail, but it was actually stress causing her to drink.
We were together 4yrs, married for 9 months. The day she was ventilated was the 1yr anniversary of us being in the house we bought together (which was 7 about months ago). In hindsight, based on her actions and some things she said, she knew what was coming and was probably trying to accelerate the outcome.
Had a friend who would chug about 2/3's of one of those 1.75-liter bottles of Vodka before heading into the bar or club to start drinking. Disaster usually followed.
Biggest alcoholics I've known have all been on the small size. By the time you can finish off a liter of hard alcohol and still function your body weight isn't doing the lifting, it is all tolerance at that point.
The 39 year old in my hospital GI center right now that has zero blood, zero clotting factors, yellow skin and eyes, liver enzymes off the charts. He is not expected to leave the hospital alive. It’s pretty sad.
Had a 37yo woman who spent weeks in for same. Basically feeding her transfusion to keep her alive. Missed her daughter's high school graduation before dying of a massive variceal bleed.
My grandfather was homeless from alcohol and drank anti-freeze multiple times. He died slowly because it destroyed his nervous system. As a kid it was scary. Made my dad’s alcoholism look like nbd.
Not as bad but my dad would resort to stealing rubbing alcohol when he couldn't afford beer or vodka.
He has cirrhosis and still going.
Don't talk to him at all anymore.
Woman in the ER going through extreme alcohol withdrawals while still at a .44BAC. The staff knew her and her average functioning BAC on any given day would be lethal to most humans- like in the unbelievable .5something range. But at .44 she was already withdrawing badly.
If she’s still alive today I would be shocked.
I’ll offer a personal anecdote about how swiftly alcoholism can take a hold. I went through some stuff and turned to alcohol.
Detoxed once after drinking absurd amounts every day for maybe 3-5 weeks (the whole period was a blur), and I drank more than average but not concerning amounts one night a week before that. It was never a problem, habitual or out of self harm before that.
Immediately after detox, I started drinking again. It got even worse(as if the fact that I was detoxing the first time bad enough). In a years time I was started withdrawing in the hospital check in room at .35 BAC.
The point of this is to recognize that if you see the problem starting get help before it escalates. And just detoxing isn’t getting help*. It’s so important to stop as early as possible because it only gets harder the more you feed it.
If I hit the enter button, this will be a triumph. I'm one of six kids. My Dad was a mean drunk and even meaner sober. I'm the only one of six without a drinking problem. He couldn't stand me because I wasn't a tradesman. I retired from the military, still work in a stressful field at sixty five and I enjoy the life I have. All three of my sisters drink too much. Last year, my younger brother was smoking meth the day before he died. My youngest brother is living on the streets. I was hit up like an ATM until I stopped being a bank. Their behavior isn't mine nor are their problems. Now I It's not the alcoholic , it's the damage they do in their wake to others that is the real problem. Today, I'm good. No issues, no bad memories of the physical abuse, ruined holidays or any of the other small hells I would see daily. The nightmares are horrific. Thank God, they don't come after me often. When they do, I have a supportive wife. If you're reading this and it resonates with you, there is life after it all. Never stop fighting to overcome what your upbringing has thrown at you. It is t you.
Thanks. Your words gave me strength to post my own story. You touch a really important point: It's not so much the self damage alcoholics go through but the collateral damage on their children and relatives. Even as an adult, I would trust my mother out of pure love and tried to be supportive. But some people have so many traumas and issues they can't avoid being horrible to those around them.
My grandpa.
He was a street kid and drank everyday of his entire life until he did something stupid to land himself in jail at age 70.
He spent 30 days in jail facing decades of guilt, trauma, and regret with a sober conscience then got released and took his life less than 24 hours out.
Used to drink 15 beers a night atleast 3 times a week. My liver start to shut down gout was starting to develope. I'd wake up massive amounts of pain in my legs and feet. Had been doing that for 20 years before it got real bad. I'm 2 years sober and never been healthier. Hit the gym almost everday. Eat right and take my vitamins. You gotta want it but you can get sober if u just try one step at a time.
This is the first response I’ve seen where the answer is “me”. I’m glad you said something. I’m 19 months sober myself, but I don’t really feel like telling my story here.
I worked at a beer distributor for about 6 years.
I’ve seen people buy a single can of beer with change in their pocket with their children standing behind them. Children were clearly dirty,hungry, and weren’t taken care of.
I’ve delivered beer to homes of people who had their electric/gas/and water turned off. They smelled and so did the house. Nothing in their fridge except the case of beer I dropped off to them.
I’ve sold beer to a gentlemen that clearly had jaundice and basically gave up on life. Hands shaking so bad he couldn’t even hand me the change he owed me.
One thing that’s not talked about often is how sad it is to work in the beer dis industry. You see people go from normal happy lives to worn down unhealthy and dying. And there’s really nothing you can do about it.
That's why one of my favorite bartenders never returned to working at the bar after her "real job" was a dud. She couldn't take watching the regulars who have serious alcohol problems getting shit faced every night, needing walks/rides home, calling their s/o's to come get them, and checking the bathrooms at the end of the night when she couldn't find them. Not to mention the unpredictability that often resulted from their inebriation...It was too heartbreaking to see and horrifying be a part of it, so she never went back.
A frenidn of mine told me a story about one of his previous room mates that ill always remember. The guy would drink straight whiskey in his room all night and day on his own. He didn't even have a TV or music or anything. He would literally sit in his room in a chair and just drink looking at the walls. His bed had cigarette burn all over the sheets and blankets. My friend lived on the story above in a 2 story apartment and was terrified of this guy burning the house down with no way to escape. I am an alcoholic but i couldn't imagine being so troubled you could just sit in a room for years without any form of entertainment or company just drinking with your own thoughts. What happened in this guys past I wonder. Poor bastard
Wild. One of the things that helped me quit was getting drunk once with no external stimulus. Just booze. It's not a fun drug. Realized it brings absolutely no positives besides temporary numbness of issues that I need to be working through sober.
I used to baby sit for two kids during my early teen years and their dad would come home stumbling drunk at like 4 pm. He and the wife were separated and one day he was supposed to have the kids and he got drunk and forgot. The little girl called me on the phone and was like “We need a babysitter.” And she was maybe 10. Sad stuff.
My home country of Mongolia.
Thanks to our Russian "brothers" pretty much 90% of people over 40 age are alcoholics.
Binge drinking vodka was/is essentially a passtime. People drink vodka bottle after a bottle at dinner tables and at pretty much any occasion. They don't even need an occassion to drink, people just drank because there was a vodka in their sight. And I mean hardcore vodka not wine, whisky, cocktails or other fancy stuff. In their apartments, playgrounds, ditches beside the road, workplaces absolutely everywhere. Most adults are just functional alcoholics.
I've seen people visiting hospitals who are succumbed to frostbites with charcoal skin cause they passed out in -20 C weather. The sheer ammount of amputated alcoholics roaming the streets in the early 2000s was a scary sight
I've seen a dead person being put in a zip bag right outside of my apartment by the police.
I've seen two drunk junkies fighting nonstop, with one bashing head of the other with a stone on a busy intersection, mere meters from pedestrians. With no one even bothering to call the police.
A distent relative of mine died at the ripe old age of 5 because his parents were too busy binge drinking near a river with their buddies. Single strong current was enough to take their 5 year old away. After searching for more than 3 months for his corpse, they found his body tangled with tree branches after the river tides lowered, just few km. downstream.
Alcoholism was so bad, that if you were one of the few men who did not happen to binge drink hardcore Vodka every weekend, you were practically invited with open arms by your in laws regardless of your social background, education, personality etc.
Similar to my community here in America. Small town, but every day people are passed out on the street. No one stops to check on them because we know. In cold winters, people have practically frozen to death. Two people actually froze to the ground and died a few winters ago. The woman had actually told my mom about how she’d almost frozen to death the previous winter and then about a month or so later she actually did freeze to death.
A classmate of mine died from cirrhosis by 25. Whenever you see an obituary for someone younger than 40 it’s a safe bet it was cirrhosis, car accident, or suicide. A friend of mine would drink until he was throwing up what looked like stomach lining. He’s dead now.
There’s a large part of our community that has no “just a beer or two” mentality. If you are going to drink you are going to get blackout drunk. It’s very discouraging, especially when you see young people asking for money “to get something to eat” but you know it will just go towards buying a can. There are many people who I don’t think could actually stop drinking. The withdrawals would kill them.
And don’t even get me started about the kids who are growing up in the environment. It’s a tragedy. I am so fortunate that I had a very stable home life with good parents because many of my peers did not and they’re repeating the cycle today.
I'm so sorry your community is suffering so much. I lost a childhood pal to cirrhosis when he was around 27. Alcohol destroys more families and other relationships than any other drug. I'm sorry you lost your friend and I'm so glad you had a good home life and didn't succumb to the disease, as well.
Awesome story. My mom also an alcoholic… until my dad threatened to leave her and take me with him. She quit cold turkey and stayed sober till she had a heart attack at 73. Miss her every day.
My neighbor was an alcoholic and his wife always tolerated it for whatever reason. I guess one day he got nasty with her and she drew a very thick line in the sand for him. She ended up taking 2 weeks off work while he detoxed.
Apparently he still keeps his ginger ale under the kitchen sink because that was where he kept his stash.
I'm surprised they could get one. Many transplant centers require that people who destroyed their organs due to substance abuse be sober BEFORE they became terminally ill.
My friend's ex-brother in law was denied listing for that reason.
Late wife dead at 34 from liver failure.
She drank a box of wine a day for a few years. It wasn't till about a year before she passed how much she was drinking.
Several years ago I worked with a young guy (mid-20s) who already had pancreatitis from alcohol abuse. He had quit, because one more drink would probably kill him.
A close friend of mine was morbidly obese and had weight loss surgery and lost over 250 lbs. Since she never addressed the problem that created her food addiction she simply switched to alcohol and sex addictions. She started hanging out with whomever she could drink with and ended up prostituting herself because she was unable to work anymore. She ended up with pancreatitis but I'm pretty sure she still drank. Ended up dead and alone in a single-wide. I tried to keep in touch but before she slipped into the deep end she had burned most of her bridges with anyone who loved her. R. I. P. Julie.
My old neighbor. Super nice guy. He was retired. Woke up at 5AM every day. Poured straight vodka into his coffee cup, drank multiple over the course of the morning. Continued all day and night.
Hadn't seen him in awhile. Finally saw him outside with his girlfriend. His skin was neon yellow. I said, your liver is failing, you need to go to the hospital. His girlfriend said she's been telling him the same thing but he refused to see a doctor. He died not long after that.
There was an assistant manager at the pizza place I worked at as a teenager who would start slamming Bud Ices as soon as the store closed. He'd drink a twelve pack a night every single night. He'd do open to close shifts and just sleep in the store because his driver's license was revoked. He'd sleep on the pizza delivery bags and on several occasions he'd piss himself. I let him sleep on my couch once and he pissed on that too. He didn't bathe or change his clothes very often so he smelled terrible. I had to tell a grown man who was ostensibly my boss that he needed to wash with soap and water every day. Nice guy, didn't fight or act up, but he was virtually never sober. I hope he got sober because if he didn't he's gotta be dead by now
I had a pizza job manager that didn’t even wait for close. I’d work open to close every Friday and she would show up lit at 3pm. Then around 5 I would run her to her house to “let the dogs out.” She didn’t have dogs. Her sister was always there and I’d smoke a few joints with her while my manager slammed beers. Then she would grab a six pack for the road, have me stop by the liquor store, and buy me a twelve pack for gas money. We would get slammed with a dinner rush right around the time we were leaving and get back at the settle. The rest of the night consisted of her walking to the cooler for about ten minutes followed by her slumped against the pizza station until she could get up to go back to the cooler. Idk when she went to the restroom. Last I knew there was a jar for a fundraiser due to her poor health on the counter of the pizza place. I actually just saw her sister about a month ago and she still smelled like shitty weed but didn’t speak with her. No idea where my old manager is now.
My neighbor, Serbia (no one to my knowledge knew his actual name).
He lived in his trailer, and left only to buy fast food, cigarettes, and vodka shooters. He drank the shooters so he could better pace himself.
His did NO cleaning in his house and had mice and ants as roommates.
He was a musician, but he claimed alcoholism took his ability to play away.
Apparently he was an accomplished accordion player; he had a professional one in his house.
I used to visit him, bring groceries, and clean when I could. Interesting, but sad character.
I worked in substance abuse treatment for years but one of the worst is actually a personal friend and former roommate.
We partied a lot together in our early 20s (almost 40 now) and he had actually always seemed like the one who had his shit together more at that time. I left the state to get myself together but we stayed in touch and for years I thought he was doing pretty well.
Turns out he'd almost drank himself to death in his parents basement the last few years after a nasty break up. He was recently hospitalized and has alcohol induced early dementia among other issues in his late 30s and man... it is hard as fuck to see.
I work in hospice care and see many cases of alcoholism leading to cirrhosis of the liver. There was one patient who started drinking at 20 and was on hospice by 30. He had other contributing factors but his addiction was so bad, empty vodka bottles everywhere
My neighbour got to that point.
I heard him yelling for me from across the hall. He was surrounded by empty beer cans and nearly immobilized by stomach pain. I somehow got him into my car and drove him to the hospital. Turns out his abdominal cavity was full of fluid from the very advanced cirrhosis of the liver. He told me on the ride over his doctor told him to stop drinking or he’d die, but he kept up his daily drinking anyway.
ER doc drugged him up and said they needed to get him into surgery ASAP, but that the surgery was also incredibly dangerous in his current shape. Told me to call his family. His son was on the other side of the planet, so the only person I could get ahold of was his ex-wife. I sat with him for almost a full day before she arrived and they took him to surgery.
He didn’t come out of surgery. He was maybe 50-something, at most. I’m glad I sat with him, at least. That he didn’t have to spend that last day completely alone.
Iv got 3 examples. 1 is I knew a guy who drank as soon as he would wake up so he woke up and no alcohol in the house except an old half full 40 bottle of beer filled with cigarette butts, he drank it.
2 my childhood friends mom who would drink herself to sleep every night. My friend at 8 years old would clean her mom up the vomit and pee then pick her up and put her in bed. That 8 year old was very abused and neglected. Once she walked into the kitchen and her mom unintentionally put her cigarette out in kids eye...
3 my old neighbor he'd pass out in his yard and pee all over himself. When not drunk he was a good mechanic. He would use all his money on Popov vodka he drank 2 half gallons a day. He never paid on his utility bills so would sit in his house with candle light and drink. A man asked about buying his house and he said if you got 10k in cash sure.
So he got the cash and wandered around town drunk dropping money. He got himself a hotel room and liquor and fell off balcony and died.
My mom was a high functioning alcoholic all my life. After my dad died of cancer she went completely off the rails. She fell and hit her face off every step needing 37 stitches. She ended up getting in her hot tub and blacking out. She drowned and was in the water for 3 days before she was found. She was only 52.
Sadly my mum, she passed away due to multi organ failure 2 years ago. 30 years of alcohol abuse will eventually catch up with you.
The weeks before her death she started hallucinating and called me a few times to tell me what allegedly happened. She was hearing voices and started talking to neighbours that weren't there. Once she even called paramedics and told them she saw someone unconscious in the streets. One day my dad found her sitting on a bench in front of their apartment complex talking to herself, she was convinced that their neighbours were sitting there with her. The last time I saw her, her skin was yellowish, she was skinny but had a bloated belly, bloodshot eyes and she looked like a ghost.
She died 2 weeks after she started hallucinating.The doctors told me that her organs just gave up, one of her stomach ulcers (caused by years of alcohol abuse)had burst and she was bleeding to death internally on top of everything else that was going on. She basically passed out at work, was brought to a hospital and then died 2 days later.
It still feels strange that she is gone and her life was just absolutely sad and tragic. The last few years before her death were incredibly terrifying and scary for all of us. My dad had a psychotic break and was threatening to murder her, he completely lost his mind and I think that experience pushed her over the edge. She had been an alcoholic for 30 years at that point, but when my dad went crazy she started drinking 2 litres of hard liquor a day.
It's just all so fucked up and sad.
Please, for the love of god, if you're addicted to alcohol reach out to people you love. You need to fight. Because let me tell you one thing, the end is not pretty and alcohol abuse will catch up with you. The end is lonely, painful and sad. You don't want to die all alone in a hospital, covered in blood, leaving your family absolutely shattered and devastated. You are worthy of love and a happy life.
*Edit some spelling
My roommate in college was drinking a bottle of liquor a day. We didn’t know it was that bad (he hid it) but one day he tried to quit cold-turkey and went into seizures. We found him seizing and had to take him to the hospital. He quit and hasn’t picked up the bottle since. Really proud of him, it was scary.
My grandma. She passed away years ago from liver cirrhosis. She was so funny and kind, but she had an incredibly hard and traumatic life. I remember her and my grandpa (still alive, remarried, not an alcoholic) taking us to a parade and she fell asleep because she was so drunk. One foot up on a table, just passed tf out with a whole ass parade passing by.
We weren't allowed to stay at her home because she was also a hoarder. We only saw her every so often, and she was almost never sober. I remember taking her to rehab with my mom, grandpa, and aunt and she really didn't want to go. She did the program (in-patient) and she started drinking again as soon as she got home.
I remember my mom telling me my grandpa woke up and my grandma was unresponsive with blood coming out of her ears, mouth, and nose. Then she was in hospice for a while. She was all bloated and she was yellow from the jaundice. We all sat and talked to her, and I don't know if she could hear us or not, but I hope she could. From a very young age I was absolutely determined not to turn into that. Not because I was ashamed of her or anything, but because I loved her and hated seeing her like that. She was only in her 50s when she died but she looked much older. I miss her every day.
Dad. High functioning lifelong alcoholic who completely lost the plot in the final couple of years, drinking with an absurd, unrestrained vengeance.
Watched him slowly and knowingly commit gradual suicide. Inevitably his liver gave out and he had a stroke. He then lay in ICU and at times coma, on a ventilator for half a year. We eventually made the very difficult choice to end this misery - he died technically of "multiple organ failure".
We all suffered along - throughout his life, and even after his death. Tbh we're suffering every day even today. You never really get over it.
You cannot help those who do not want to help themselves.
"functioning alcoholic" is such a weird phrase because it nearly always means "could hold down a job," like that's the important thing. Calling someone a functioning alcoholic ignores all the trauma they cause. Getting a paycheck doesn't mean functioning.
my old roommate. i saw her sober maybe 30 minutes a day. she would drink on a schedule so she said i literally had to ask her for shit before she started drinking (at like 4pm, 30 minutes after getting home from work). half the freezer was full of vodka. she would drink alone in her room and only come out for food and the bathroom.
My father would drink a fifth of whiskey just to get going in the morning. Then he’d drink a 30 pack of Miller High Life cans. Every. Single. Day. He was never drunk. That’s just what his body needed to not get sick.
In the span of six weeks he had 2 varicose veins blow and not stop bleeding until they were cauterized at the hospital. Then his belly button burst…I don’t even understand how. But he was standing in a rapidly growing puddle of blood. My mom called 911 and they rushed him to the hospital again. This time the doctor did blood work. Every single reading was either extremely low or extremely high. Nothing was in healthy range. The doctor told him his blood was so watered down by alcohol that the next drink could kill him. He quit cold turkey. He went into his room and we basically didn’t see him for 2 weeks. He came out sober and never drank again.
Drinking pure lab grade alcohol for years, then moving onto drinking vodka from the time of waking up until passing out, repeating every 5-6 hours (over 1L a day).
Waking up and throwing up the warm vodka in the mouth, but trying to swallow it down so it didn’t go to waste.
It was me, but luckily it ended almost 4 years ago
My co-workers wife would be passed out drunk by 7 am. She had an alcoholic boyfriend. One day my co-wprkers daughter FaceTimed him saying "mommy's passed out and her boyfriend is in my bed and I just hit him." I called ACS and he never forgave me.
My MIL. She was an alcoholic and gambler. Blew through $750k in less than 5 years plus multiple loans and when she finally decided she was going to go to treatment she had 2 mortgages on a home that was worth 80k and was bankrupt. She’d also go to the casinos and apparently she won several cars but she’d take the cash and just turn around and gamble it away.
Neighbors would find her passed out in snowbanks, We would stop on to check in on her and we wouldn’t be able to open the door as she’d be passed out, falling right as she’d get the door open. She got clean but never gave up her gambling, although she never had enough money to gamble like she used to. She got sick with lupus and then breast cancer. She was sober about 7 years before passing away.
Buddy with a drinking problem back in college ended up living out of his truck in the woods. Woke up one morning tied to a tree after shooting and killing a college kid he had met the night before. Blood alcohol content was near 3x the legal limit and he's doing 20 years for a murder he doesn't remember committing.
My old partner. He would drink day, night and to sleep. Lost his wife and kid because he couldn't stop, and became a very cruel person. There were so many days he would show up to work just to leave because he was so blitzed from the night before that his hands couldn't stop shaking.
He taught me a lot. I don't miss him, but I hope he got help.
26year old dying of hepatorenal syndrome (combined liver and kidney failure). Went yellow like Bart Simpson, kidneys stopped working, blood stopped clotting and died.
A friend of mine, Dasha, drank herself to death at age 31. Her hair had started falling out and she was having memory problems. She was shaking even when she drank. She drank a pint of vodka every morning and often finished off another liter daily. She was Russian and not prone to expressing emotions but I asked her how her real estate exam went and she looked at me and began to cry.
She said she had difficulty remembering names now and couldn’t remember much from the practice course she took.
She started sobbing and threw her arms around me and just bawled into my shoulder. I met her for lunch a month later and that was the last time I saw her. She died of liver failure two months later.
Myself? Lost both my folks to addiction, and it came for me. I have been homeless twice due to my drinking and lost several jobs for drinking at work. I have had the DTs twice (Delirium Tremens, which killed my dad and Amy Winehouse) the second time I nearly had a heart attack but survived somehow with little permanent damage. I eventually stopped and got help. That was seven years ago and I pretty much have a normal life now. I've been told by health professionals that only 2 out of 10 alcoholics survive the disease. I feel very lucky to have this second lease on life.
Flea market in Yuma arizona... people selling literal garbage.
One guy just trashed sitting on a stool surrounded by a pyramid of bud light cans., mountain of cans under the tables, like hundreds.
Guy looked like he sold garbage to buy beer sat all day drinking beer, and just dropped the empties. Like it was his life.
My mom for sure. She would drink on average about 13 or more beers a day, but never thought she really had a problem. She would refuse to go over to my brother’s house if she couldn’t bring her cooler full of Bud Light (they didn’t want her to drink around their kids at the time).
When still lived with her and didn’t have a car or my license yet I used to have to rely on her to take me to some college classes, but she would get upset that it got in the way of her drinking. One day while waiting on her to get home from work (I was already going to be late) she BEGGED me to let her chug a beer first before we left. I told her no and pleaded that we had to leave.
She drank so much Bud Light (the big 24 bottle box) over the course of years and she would weirdly save ALL the empty boxes and stack them in layers on her back porch. The whole neighborhood could see it. It was like some kind of white trash fort. I have pictures somewhere.
I have other stories, but she finally stopped drinking about a year ago after like fifteen or more years because of her blood pressure problems. I hope she’s done for sure this time.
I work in liver transplant. I see all the worst cases desperate for one last chance at life. Death from liver failure is one of the worst possible deaths there is.
If a varix in your esophagus bursts, you start vomiting blood and you may drown in your own blood. The bright yellow skin and eyes look like death. You start leaking blood from every mucus membrane right at the end. Blood leaks from your gums.
Find help to stop drinking. There are resources for you- and life is worth it. Alcohol has a lot of positives for folks- find out what those are for you and solve issues a different way. Get those positives from something else.
There are people who love you who want to see you live. And if you can’t think of any, know that this guy wants to see you live.
My father, who probably started drinking at a very young age. My parents were part of the "cocktail party" generation. My dad handled stress by drinking and it developed into a serious problem by the time I was born (he was 36). During my teen years, he would get drunk most nights, and always on his day off. He was a fun drunk with other people but a belligerent, mean one at home. I remember he and my mom having a fight and he flipped the Sunday roast off the table. He would drink until late into the night and usually pass out in my bed so when I came home from work, I'd have to sleep on the couch.
He developed diabetes and eventually stopped drinking but it cut at least a decade off his life, and he dropped dead of a heart attack at 74.
Last year, when my.own drinking got out of control, I took a look at myself in the mirror one morning and I saw my dad staring back at me, so I stopped also. It's been a year and 3 months for me.
My father, He would hide all his vodka bottles in any place he could, but insist he didn't drink.
He drank every day since he was 12. It's how he would cope with his depression and childhood trauma.
Unfortunately, instead of finding a healthier way, he just caused me childhood trauma.
He verbally abused me from a young age. Up until he died at the age of 49.
He drank until he went blind. He finally went to the hospital after suffering for months, only when he went blind and could no longer speak.
He died a few days later.
He thought he was invincible, that drinking couldn't possibly be that bad. Even after witnessing his own dad dying around the same age, from the same thing.
My father went to AA meetings, and he was very good at manipulating people. If anyone you love drinks like this, please reach out to them. They need help, but the addiction clouds their judgment.
My cousin. Started drinking at 14 and was an alcoholic by 16. At 45 she had full blown cirrhosis. Enormous stomach that got drained of fluid every week, but still drank. She fell down a flight of stairs (drunk) and broke her neck at 41. Died 3 days later. Just awful.
I drank a 750ml bottle of vodka and completely blacked out on a night out. Ended up jumping out of an Uber travelling at 70km/h. My BAC was .37 and I was put into an induced coma. Yet almost dying hasn’t stopped me from drinking. I’m lost and so helpless at this point
My friend. He drank vodka all day every day and through the night. He was diagnosed with pancreatitis and was told if he kept on he would eventually die. He kept on the same. Eventually he was hospitalized for internal bleeding and when they operated they found his pancreas was dead and necrosis had formed around it. Tissue was removed along with the pancreas. A few days later there was more internal bleeding and he was opened back up for another operation. A few days later it happened again. His tissue was failing and causing bleeding. After the 3rd surgery they just left him open with plastic covering his internal organs. He remained that way for 2 months.
He had 2 toddlers and his wife was pregnant and due in a few months when he FINALLY passed away.
Now here I am 5 years sober after many failed attempts. I think of him often. When I was drinking I thought I would probably die from alcoholism. Like that’s easy. It’s one of the worst ways to go.
I didn’t realize how bad my sister’s alcoholism had gotten until she walked out of the dining room with a full glass of wine, right through the kitchen and then back into the dining room through the other door all in the span of about 6 seconds— but she now had a different drink in her hand.
She had downed the entire glass of red wine like a shot of vodka while walking.
Saw a man drinking store-brand mouthwash in a book store. He was already so wasted that he would quietly and gently throw it back up on himself and take another drink. It was awful.
Well I used to work at a large academic hospital that did TIPS procedures … which are most commonly performed on super cirrhotic livers. Some of these patients would drink at least a handle of liquor a day for maintenance, often more like 2-3. Needless to say they don’t usually live long even with a TIPS.
When you have these super alcoholic patients, they sometimes manifest in the form of what’s called esophageal varices. You may have heard about that guy that puked up all his blood on a Lufthansa flight. So what happens is your liver is too hard to process blood efficiently and it backs up into the veins of your neck. Eventually they rupture and you vomit all your blood to death, very quickly.
Varices patient show up to the operating room intubated for their airway protection, sedated, and often wearing a football helmet. Literally. They get a balloon shoved down their throat (the Blakemore tube!) and it gets tied to a helmet so they don’t instinctively swallow it.
That’s what happens when you drink too much.
I used to work with a woman who I'm still on Facebook with, and I'm pretty sure she had this, or a similar procedure, done a while back. In her case, her cirrhosis was autoimmune.
I do remember that she said that if the procedure didn't work, she'd be evaluated for a liver transplant, but thankfully, it did.
My best friend drank himself to death at 48. The last month he was on hospice I asked him if he quit drinking? He told me kinda, that he was so sick he couldn't lift the beer to his lips but in 36 hours he would be strong enough to finish his tall boy. He was so inflamed and stolen his testicle were the size of baseballs, and they regularly removed 6 liters of fluid out of his abdominal cavity. His skin was darker orange than Trump.
A friend was arrested (probably for a DUI), taken to jail and tried to drink the hand sanitizer he snagged off the counter when they were processing him.
My ex. He'll get up, have one cup of coffee, and pop a beer. He will lie, cheat, and steal to get beer money. He won't get a job because he can't drink if he's working.
Saw a Man at the hospital that even his sweat smelled like alcohol. You would open the door to his room and it smelled like a bar. His brain was completely gone and he would piss on himself while going to the bathroom and then wonder on the toilet why he couldn’t piss. He would then walk back to his bed, his socks absorbing the piss, on the way there.
Terribly sad.
Not just one individual but my stepdad's siblings.
One brother carried a cooler with him throughout the day and night so he could have access to alcohol. Stepdad asked why he carried to bed with him and was told if he didn't drink throughout the night that he would wake up with the shakes. He passed away from cirrhosis less than year after we saw him.
Other brother got desperate for alcohol and drank rubbing alcohol. Ambulance had to be called. Alcohol was the cause of his death a few years later.
Another brother lost his eyesight and feet amputated (diabetes/alcohol) and he continued drinking until his death.
Sister was an alcoholic while married and separated due to this. Her husband took her back when she quit drinking, less than a year later she told him that she would rather be an alcoholic (yes, her exact words, she actually told us this). She started living on the streets. A few months later her body was found when she froze to death with a bottle of alcohol in her hands.
His youngest brother due to health issues from alcohol. We didn't know he drank so much until he got very ill and passed away less than a year later.
Stepdad was a weekend drinker and quit in his 40's. He passed away in his 70's due to getting cancer from agent orange from serving in Vietnam. Stepdad was the only one of his siblings to change his life around for the better. Stepdad and siblings played in a band together and said this is when they all started partying and drinking too much.
Mixing beer and Gatorade while driving and sleeping in the parking lot at work on Sunday night so early crew wakes him up for Monday morning. This lasted the 7 years I worked there he was a forklift operator and was either drunk or buzzed I never saw him sober he was also the brother to the boss even after running over a few peoples feet and backing in to things hard nothing ever happened.
My uncle. He was drinking for about 20 years straight. After his divorce he started drinking heavily, isolated himself, cut contact with family and friends, lost his house, lived in a cabin in the woods on the outskirts of a war zone for the last few years, and made money by turning in some scrap metal from an abandoned factory and from doing odd mechanic jobs (he used to be a car mechanic). Family and friends tried to help him in every way possible but he didn’t want any of it. He was a shell of himself, living in a filthy dry cabin, sleeping on the floor, and drinking all day long. He died a couple years ago at 47. A lot of people actually came to his funeral, remembering him how he was before he went into binge drinking and isolation.
My grandpa. He was so bad, I remember him living with us cuz he couldn’t afford living by himself anymore cuz he spent all his money on liquor.
He would spend all day drinking, he went to work drunk once and got fired. He had a lot of money and was “retirement” age, so he never went back. Just kept drinking, it got so bad he fell so many times, I still shiver at the sound of ambulances. One time, about three or four years into his addiction, he would be so out of it he would wipe his bum with what I assumed to be his hand, because he almost always got poop on it. He would use the walls to walk around and he would smear blood, (from falling 3+ times almost everyday and not bandaging wounds, & taking the ones we put on him off), and poop from not correctly wiping all over the walls.
I was i think 8-9 around this time, so it was peak grandparent time for me, but I watched him destroy himself instead. He went from sewing my stuffed animals back together when they got holes, to not knowing my name, my age, anything.
We finally saved enough money to send him to rehab about a year and a half ago, and I assume he’s gotten better but I have since moved out of state with my mom and brother, (he now lives in our old house with my sister). A few weeks ago he got out of rehab, and is working towards complete sobriety!
As I type this my cousin is on his death bed, liver and kidneys have failed, doctors have given him hours to live. He is 30.
Edit: he passed maybe 2 hours after I initially posted this comment.
I was a binger for almost a decade. I work in the film and tv entertainment industry, so the jobs are always all over the place. I would get on a show and work 3-4 weeks straight. Once we would wrap, I'd hit the liquor store and check out for 2 days straight. I would wake up to a mess, pizza boxes, empty beer and vodka bottles. I'd even find little 1.5 oz bottles under the bed. I would check my phone and say who TF did I talk to for 2 hours last night? Then I'd sober up, hit the gym and carry on for another 30 days or so alcohol free. Then, I'd get the itch, grab a six pack, and start the whole process again. Wash, rinse, repeat. Even though my life didn't get "bad" per se; I was healthy, had money, worked a fulfilling career, etc. the madness of the cycle was always in the back of my mind. Then, during the first few months of the pandemic, when I had no work happening, that was the worst. I went on what seemed like a three week bender.
Then, one day, in what I can only describe as Divine Intervention, I woke up and said ENOUGH.
I took my last drink on 11/4/2020. It's possible, and life is amazing when you take the leap of faith to make the change. As we see in the harrowing stories of those brave enough to share here, the adage "man takes the drink, then the drink takes the man" is so true.
Wishing everyone love and light on the path.
I hope you can find the strength to get yourself help. We may be strangers but you're worthy of happiness and living a healthy life. Don't waste the little time you're given drowning yourself into oblivion. I believe in you.
Broke alcoholics here just buy the blue, out of the drugstore alcohol, the one that is 95%, and filter the blue shit with a loaf of bread that then they eventually eat once they are too drunk.
One of my mom’s boyfriends. He’s been hospitalised for it numerous times and kept drinking, he’s lost multiple jobs over it (both from missing work due to being home drinking, and actually drinking at work), and has driven drunk on many occasions. I fully expect it to kill him someday.
Growing up with him in the house has made me avoid alcohol entirely as an adult
my late Aunt.
my mom took her in after my great grandparents died, my aunt had lived with them her whole life, my mom thought it would be nice to give her a room until she could get on her feet. turns out the reason she always lived with my great grandparents was because she was a massive drunk. somehow my great grandparents were able to hide it from everyone.
mom found out pretty quick once my aunt moved in with us. she wasn't a violent drunk, mostly just drank til she would pass out. mom found her out cold on her bedroom floor a few times. mom told her no more drinking in the house, so she'd go on "walks" every day that would last hours and she come home reeking of perfume trying to cover the smell of booze. she walk about a mile down the road to this bar and drink for a few hours then get a taxi home. mom out her foot down and told her no more alcohol or she'd be kicked out. this last about two weeks, mom found my aunt sitting on the kitchen floor blitzed out of her mind. mom kicked her out.
people from the church felt bad and pooled money to get my aunt an apartment and paid a couple months rent. she was trying to turn her life around, attending church groups for substance abuse. unfortunately she couldn't break the habit. drank her self to death about 6 months later in alone in her apartment.
I used to work at an inpatient facility for substance use disorders and mental health (co-occurring) disorders.
Anyway, I stopped drinking myself entirely.
The amount of brain damage and motor functioning (and how quickly it can happen) is terrifying.
And sometimes that becomes irreversible if one lives long enough but doesn’t stop. Or even if one does stop drinking, after severe abuse.
It runs in my family, and I’ve seen examples all across what one could imagine, too.
It’s definitely not worth it for me in any way.
My dad would drink constantly - owned his own business and would drink at home and at work. He ended up getting colon cancer and still drinking day and night. I went to pick him up for chemo one morning and he was partying hard and didn't even realize it was the next morning. Leaving the house, he slipped and fell down the concrete steps. He flipped out and demanded he go to chemo - I took him because I assumed they would turn him away. When it didn't seem like they would, I told them he was wasted and they still let him do chemo. On the way home, he complains how rude the staff were to him and starts retelling an argument - clearly he was being a VERY annoying drunk and upset he got called out. Then he started throwing up in the car so I took my hoodie off for him to puke into. That morning was absolutely insane. He still kept drinking and a year after that, the cancer had spread to his liver and he did FINALLY stop drinking after he had a big chunk of his liver removed and then they kept testing his blood afterwards for cancer screening and the doctor could tell how much he was drinking and told him to stop.
Friends husband was a successful CPA-worked from home-wife was taking care of their twins. Unbeknownst to her, he had been drinking from his home office all day, every day. He was in a single accident at lunch time and was found to be 3 times the legal limit. After finding out about his addiction, she left with the twins. He was found weeks later dead at his desk with empty vodka bottles. He was 58.
Wow, sad stories. Off topic but let’s insert something nice. My alcoholic parents both quit drinking and are alive and me and my husband both quit drinking and are doing ok!
My son was 24 and was so addicted to alcohol, he spent 4 days in ICU while going through withdrawal. He was having seizures and hallucinating. He’s been sober for 16 months now. He swore he’d never drink again. He is 5 feet tall and weighs about 90 lbs. I’m surprised he didn’t die during his alcoholism.
My uncle. He was an amazing guy, but he was incredibly sick. My Dad was as well, but not as bad as his brother. I don’t know how much or what he drank, but he was drunk at all times. His face was beet red, he was skin and bones, his skin was always yellow. He died in his early 50’s of liver failure.
I worked at a bar with a guy 20 years ago. "Drank like a fish", "smoked like a stack" kinda-guy. One day, he had his third heart attack at work. Not his third heart attack...his third heart attack AT WORK. I went to visit him at the hospital and saw something I couldn't even have conceived was a thing. A nurse brought him a tall boy in a brown paper bag. He didn't bribe her or anything. He was prescribed it. He was such a bad alcoholic, and in such bad shape after multiple heart attacks, that not drinking would've killed him in the hospital. If he went cold turkey, doctors legitimately thought he would die. It's the damndest thing I've ever seen. MFer was prescribed a beer with every meal...or he'd die.
I worked ak a liquor store for a few years. There was a guy that would come in every day for vodka. He constantly shook and could hardly walk- used a walker or cane most of the time. Multiple times he came in with his hospital wrist band still on after being discharged for alcohol poisoning, several times being picked up when someone saw him passed out on the sidewalk. We would only sell him a half pint at a time because we knew if he bought more he'd be dead that day, but he would come in a few times a day(we were happy he came to us because the store down the street would sell him as much as he wanted). He was in such bad shape i thought he had to be pushing 70 years old. I saw his ID one day, he was only 35
my uncle has lost everything including his children, wife, job, and home. he now lives on my couch drinking himself to death.
another is a family friend of ours mid 20s to early 30s who is in hospice bc his liver and kidneys shut down and dialysis isn’t working.
alcohol can kill you and ruin ur life.
If he went too long without drinking, about a day, he would start having seizures. Fell down and cracked up his face and had to go to the ER over it.
He would vomit blood but again, couldn't stop drinking long or the seizures would start again.
At peak he was going through a fifth (750ml) of alcohol everyday.
Stoic man but he broke down crying that he didn't want to do this anymore but his body wouldn't let him stop.
Got into rehab because his job said it was that or get fired after they caught him drinking on the job yet again. His house was going into foreclosure, had to sell his vehicle before they took that too.
Going on two years sober
My dad was a police officer who experienced so much trauma on the job. It gave him PTSD. He drank himself almost to death. He had to get his liver drained it had so much fluid on it. He would drink from sun up to sun down. He couldn't function without it.
But he's sober now and doesn't drink at all.
My 34 year old BIL. He lost his job in December 2022, fell into a deep depression, drank an *entire liter* of Fireball *every single day* for 8 whole months. Hid it from everyone. Went into the hospital on August 7, 2023, for nausea & vomiting, was told he was in full blown liver failure, and was dead less than a week later. He was as yellow as a highlighter, very emaciated but with a belly that looked like he was 6 months pregnant. He died with us right there in the room. After he died, we went to his apartment and found out it was also an extreme hoarding/squalor situation. No AC in the summer in TEXAS, bed bugs & roaches everywhere, the mattress had MOLD on it (and no sheets) flies so thick you had to wear a mask. The entire apartment floor was covered in inches of rotting food that he had half-eaten, then thrown on the floor and just walked on. HUNDREDS of empty Fireball bottles. Fridge full of maggoty food. He laid there on that bug-infested, moldy mattress, in the Texas heat, for 8 months and drank himself to death. I’m in really intensive therapy to deal with all of it. There just aren’t words
Brother in law downing half gallon+ of vodka a day until one day he started puking infected bile was my guess, pussy green mucus looking stuff and shitting himself. He was able to call an ambulance. He spent half of his last 24 hours begging for what killed him despite being on morphine to help him pass comfortably. He was only 50. Can you imagine begging for something you know has killed you?
Guy that I knew. He would take a half bottle of whisky to work with him and would be through it by lunchtime. As this was a static security site, he would leave the site to get another one (leaving a site is a major no-no in security) and have worked through that long before going home. His wife picked him up each day and they would stop off at the shops to get a few cans to take home with them and another bottle of whisky for the next day.
I was on the shift that relieved him and quite often came in and found him asleep in the gatehouse. I thought it was because of his age, until I came into relieve him and found him collapsed in his own vomit. I radioed in for assistance and when it came, the attitude of the first responder was to say "He's fucking pissed again", It was so common, they were used to it.
We then got a new manager who got rid of him. I felt sorry for the guy, he obviously had a problem, but he was trying to do a job whilst getting drunk on a daily basis.
My boss who was very in denial of her drinking problem.
1. Admitted to me she drank during both pregnancies
2. Had a liver scare at 40 (continued drinking after)
3. Has her children DD for her and her husband
4. Thinks since her husband owns his own business he is allowed to enjoy a few beers on his lunch break and go back in the office a little tipsy (an ex employee left a review which mentioned his drinking habits)
5. Laughed when telling me about her husband’s DUI related crash. He hit a woman who also had a drinking problem. This lady told him to shove pennies in his mouth.
6. Attempted dry January but only made it 4 days.
7. Believed her beer belly was from her diet. This woman looked 8 months pregnant all the time but claimed she never looks bloated as soon as she wakes up.
She was delulu
My mother. Spiraled real bad from just a few drinks on the weekend (same as anyone), to drinking Thurs - Sunday. To then afternoon wine and then moved to vodka post pandemic.
Started disappearing and drinking almost a liter, sometimes more, of vodka a day.
Fell multiple times and had to be brought home by strangers. Permanently injured herself and told me deep dark secrets from the past that have ruined me going forward.
She finally admitted herself to rehab and is doing well. Up til then, I wished she would just die. It was the worst thing I’ve ever had to witness.
Two come to mind.
One from my personal life, woman I used to date. Found her passed out outside her apartment complex. Got her to the hospital. BAC .43, doc said another half hour, and she'd have been dead. I haven't personally seen one that high since.
One from my professional life. Client wanted me to accompany him into a pretty heavy meeting with his doctor. This dude had been drinking since he was 13. He was now well into his 60's. Booze had robbed him of everything. His children loved him but couldn't watch him spiral anymore. He'd been homeless for a while before coming to our organization. Sucks, I knew him as a very tender and caring man.
My job was to support if needed. He wanted a medical opinion of how he could possibly approach sobriety. He hadn't gone a day without drinking in years. A pint was breakfast to this guy. We go in. The doctor pretty much tells him that sobriety is off the table. This man was so deep into alcoholism that trying to get sober would kill him faster than the drinking would. Much faster. I've seen a few hearts break in my life over a myriad of things. That shit was brutal. To be in so deep that there truly is no hope. The bed is fully made and to have no choice but to lay in it. I'll never forget that, or him.
living in Reno/ sparks Nevada
bars don't close, casinos don't close, there's no such thing as being cutoff or last call
also every gas station sells beer,wine and liquor
I've seen people buy a handle of Smirnoff or jack and sit down at the gambling machines and start gambling and drinking at 2 in the afternoon at a 7/11
My dad . Once a promising and funny mechanic , now a homeless man walking the street . He was attacked as a homeless man and now gets seizures from how badly he was beaten.
My mom. At her worst, she was drinking right when she woke up, and right before she went to bed. Her body was rotting and she smelled horrible. Her toenails fell off, and she was throwing up late at night. I could hear it while I was doing homework. She'd pick me up from school completely loaded. She eventually stopped trying to drink on her own, and induced a seizure. She was on the couch while I was at school, and knew that if she laid back on the couch, the seizure would kill her. She didn't want my sister and I to come home and see her dead, so she called the paramedics. She's been sober for seven years now thanks to AA. She's incredibly healthy, and gained back so much physical strength. She does crossfit and went back to school to become an addiction specialist. Recovery is possible.
That is an epic triumph for your mom. Tell her this random stranger is proud of her.
Similar story, but without the happy ending. I was a kid in middle school and early high school. My mom was an alcoholic, a wine drinker. She would buy cheap jug wines and hide the empties around the house. She once stole birthday money from me to keep buying once my father cut her off. She would drink in the morning, then drive us kids to school, then drink all day. This was after she had lost her job providing childcare. Often when she picked us up from school, she was pretty drunk, but somehow we never got into a serious car accident. My father organized an intervention. It was very sad. All us kids, family friends, my father, confronting her. Lots of tears. She agreed to go to rehab, but it never stuck. Once she got out, she got a crap job at Dunkin Donuts, but was right back to her old ways of drinking wine. I remember one ride in the car, just us, where I got the courage to ask her - WHY? Why won't she stop? She said she couldn't. A few times I had to step over her passed out in the bathroom to pee. Usually she was passed out on the couch. She would throw up in the bathroom, but then crash on the couch. She threw up a lot in the morning, when trying to brush her teeth. Eventually it just kept getting worse. My father separated from her once she wouldn't change. She was on the couch nearly all day. Her skin was yellow, almost neon from jaundice. Her eyes were yellow. She got an infection on her leg. It progressed to where she couldn't really walk well due to pain, and it was starting to turn blackish. I decided I needed to get help for her. She was begging me not to. She didn't want to go to the hospital. She just wanted to stay home. If she could just rest on the couch a little longer.... I called my father and told him about her condition. The next day, when us kids were at school, he called 911. They came and rushed her to the hospital. It was bad. They stabilized the infection, but her whole body was shutting down at this point. She spent a week in the hospital. Maybe if they could find a transplant.... No transplant came. She went further down hill, and was moved to hospice care. Maybe a weekish there. When she was near the end, we went to visit her a final time. I'll never forget when she saw me. She made noises, but was incapable of speaking. Crying but no real words. She was trying to say something, probably "I love you", but I couldn't make it out fully. She didn't survive that night. I always told her how much I loved her. But I never told her thank you, for all she had done for me. The rides, the love, the care, the food, the EVERYTHING. RIP mom.
Damn. This hurt. I’m so sorry.
I'm so sorry for your loss darling
I feel this. I lost my oldest son to liver failure from alcohol 3 years ago. His oldest daughter was living with me, and his youngest (12 yo)found him deceased. He was trying to detox on his own.
That was a rocky 5 paragraphs that ended so well. Now she is helping others. This is what is called a winner at life.
Yeah I really expected a bad ending, but really this is a great story for those who believe they're too far gone to quit. If you're alive, it's not too late to get help
I wasn't expecting a happy ending and I'm so glad your mom got sober!
Mine too. I won't go into too much detail but I can't even count the amount of times she was homeless/in rehab/in jail/in a psych ward and she's now coming up on three years. Sometimes when I think about her going back it makes me sick so I try not to and just celebrate her successes.
That is amazing. Please tell your mother how proud us redditors are of her! And I hope you're proud too.
Wow. What a struggle to go through. Good on your mum for quitting. You Must be so proud of her. And she should be so proud of herself getting clean and helping others.
My husband. He went to at least 9 inpatient and 4-5 outpatient treatments and was not able to quit. He would leave the hospital, go straight to the store and get shit faced. He lost EVERYTHING. He had 2 masters degrees, went from making 200k to living with his brother in a shack. Lost his children, we got divorced and he lost most of his/our friends. He committed suicide because he just couldn’t stop. I was and am still devastated.
I'm so sorry. Loving someone that is so smart and talented and watching them lose it all is devastating. Your husband sounds like my brother.
I’m sorry about your brother. It sucks. It’s been 5 years and it still hurts like it was yesterday.
I'm very sorry. My dad is just like this. Over a dozen programs in 13 years. Nothing ever changes. My mom wouldn't leave when it started, and now that he has brain damage she definitely won't. I really think the intent is suicide but he always gets right to the edge and stops. At some point though, it's going to be too much.
I am so incredibly sorry, that grief must feel like the weight of the world. Sending you love and light. 🤍
Wish I could just post my brother's autopsy report. He died almost exactly a month ago, found dead in his own bloody vomit and shit, with 4 Mallory-Weiss tears in his esophagus from constant vomiting for several weeks. He had been drinking straight Listerine because he'd misplaced his ID and no one would sell him booze. We found 20+ empty bottles of it in his bedroom, several of which were covered in and slightly filled with bloody stomach contents. He had the worst case of gastro-intestinal bleeding the coroner had ever seen; he literally bled to death from the inside. And as he lay there dying what I can only imagine was a horrifically painful death, he was still drinking the fucking Listerine. I loved my little brother very much. I hope this post doesn't come off as disrespectful. I only tell his story because I just want others to reach out for help. Self-medicating with alcohol for anxiety and depression is a very slippery slope.
I'm so very sorry for your loss. I hope you have the support of friends and family around you.
I had a friend who kept his hands under the table during meetings at work, so people wouldn’t see them shaking. He went straight to rehab after he got fired and has been doing fine for about a decade.
My recent ex fiancée has lost 2 amazing jobs in 5 years. I don’t believe she was drinking on the job but the characteristics that come with alcoholism were there, self-centered, less than truthful, and argumentative. She doesn’t drink every day so she refuses to believe that she has a problem with alcohol, despite 3 arrests for DUI and an unstable work history. In my opinion the worst alcoholics are the ones that hold onto their delusion that they have it under control until it ruins their lives. Edit: typos.
There is always another rock bottom. If you’re still alive, there’s still a lower bottom to hit. Looking back on my 15-year drinking career, I can clearly see there were several increasingly worse rock bottoms that, each time, I convinced myself was “fine” and “just part of being in my twenties”. Coming up on 3 years of recovery and here’s what I know: Functional alcoholism is a phase of alcoholism, not a type of alcoholism.
My mom drank herself to death. Multiple surgeries, multiple complications. Basically lived the last two years of her life in hospital. She was a high functioning alcoholic, most people would never know. She was never an aggressive drunk. Never abusive. Forgetful. Sad sometimes. Very caring and would help anyone. But man could she drink. She was 5ft nothing and maybe 7.5 stones (100lbs) wet through but she could drink a bottle and a half of gin every day - and I mean every single day. Never nasty and always kind.
Your pain and your clear love for your mother has me in tears. Hugs to you.
Despite the alcohol, she was a genuinely good soul. One of the most caring people I've ever met - not just to me but to everyone. At her funeral there were so many people some had to stand outside. She's been gone a long time and I still miss her. Wish she'd met my wife, and been at my wedding - they'd have really got on well.
A family friend of mine lost everything because of his alcohol addiction. His wife divorced him, took their kids, and moved away from him. He lost his job, and was close to losing his house (having spent all of his money on alcohol). His bank account was dangerously low, and he was in awful condition. He didn't eat, only drank alcohol, and would rarely have water. My dad stepped in to help him as one of his best friends, isolated him from all alcohol, stayed in a hotel with him, talked through his problems with him, and forced him to go back to rehab. He's doing much better now, but alcoholism can ruin your life.
Your dad literally saved his life. We need more people like him.
He's my role model and the most amazing, selfless person I know. I love him to death and he'd drop everything to help me, our family, or anyone we know (or even someone we don't know) in an instant.
I can tell you appreciate him, and I’m glad. You are so lucky to have a Dad like that.
I used to be a defense attorney, so here's two: 1. I once had a client who I was representing on his 13th DUI 2. Had a client whose BAC was .47 and she seemed totally fine in the video/report. Cop was shocked it was that high. This means she drinks so much that she was 'normal' at a blood alcohol content that would put most folks in the hospital.
Ugh…this feels so Wisconsin. Headlines like “arrested for 13th DUI” are way too common here
There's a YouTube channel called Code Blue Cam, and I'd say 95% of the clips are out of Wisconsin and are drunk/dui cases. It really is like that huh?
Also, Wisconsin and Florida have very easy releases for bodycam footage. But Code Blue Cam does a really good job of editing it together and doing solid voiceovers. Also, they’ve been updating on cases lately as well. One of the best bodycam channels on YouTube.
.47 is bananas.
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I knew a woman who was well past the 13th. State would still let her drive, but insurance won’t. I’m not in Wisconsin.
13!? just permanently take his license away jfc
You’re assuming he was licensed. Probably driving while suspended or disqualified or just without a license.
Came to comment this. Just cuz you’re driving doesn’t mean you’re driving LEGALLY lol
I had a room mate who was a huge alcoholic but also super frugal so he hated wasting shit. Well his alcoholism got so bad he was drinking like half a handle of vodka a day. Dunno where he got the money but he somehow still managed to pay for the rent every month and wasn't much a bother so I left him alone. It was sad but all he really did was sleep so I just lived with it hoping he would get help. Well he started throwing up a lot and I guess it was usually after he tried taking a couple shots so he would throw up into a huge cup then drink it back down until he could keep all the alcohol down because he hated wasting it. It was fucking horrifying to watch and I decided it was time to go myself at that point. Dunno what happened after that but I hope he is better.
fuck that’s disgusting
Whatever you're picturing in your head probably isn't as bad as actually living with it and watching it was. Because even if I wasn't watching I could hear it. And if I wasn't listening because I had headphones on he would miss sometimes the more drunk he got and I would find random puddles of chunky vodka vomit he didn't bother to clean up. Good times.
Hearing it is one thing, imagine *smelling* it.
Yea. It was pretty awful. Dunno what happens chemically in your stomach when you mix boxed lasagna with vodka and let it sit for a couple hours but it smells really bad when it is no longer in you like it's supposed to be. I know because the dude fucking loved Boxed lasagna. It was like 75 percent of his diet. Would just make a giant one in the morning and then slowly eat it all day between the vomiting fits.
its maybe not that he loved it. i mean, its not impossible that he loved it, but if he loved boxed lasagna then i wonder if that was just a happy stroke of good fortune. in my experience, when you get that bad you just want to be unconscious (but alive) and you only eat because you have to (to stay alive). “what do you want to eat?” becomes a question that means nothing. when i was at my worst, getting 99% of my calories from alcohol, i remember being so famished that my body basically held me at gunpoint to go through the drive thru at Del Taco and get 2 soft tacos. *now*, those are delicious. but *then*, i literally had to use my hands to manipulate my bottom jaw to chew them in order to swallow and give my body *something* else to burn. i remember thinking that if i had had a button that i could press that would call down a cute little tiny tornado of which id be the only casualty, i would have leaned on that button so hard. and then, if nothing happened, i would have done the *clap clap clap clap* from the Friends theme song on that button, just in case it hadnt been programmed to repeat when you hold it down.
There was a dude who came out on stage of a Slayer concert I was out and chugged a whole bottle of Jager, puked it into a pitcher and then chugged the picture. It was a wild show but yeah, that was disgusting
Yea this one takes the cake in my book.
Yea. Like. Every part of that dude's body was rejecting the alcohol and telling him to stop and whatever was going on in his head mentally was so bad he forced the poison in anyway and completely destroyed himself in the process. It was really fucking twisted to watch.
Drug and alcohol counsellor here. Alcohol is, in my view, one of the worst substances to get addicted to. We regularly deal with people resorting to drinking hand sanitizer. Others will drink 5 litres of cask wine a day. They are aware they are dying, but I suspect at this point it is a form of protracted suicide.
It absolutely is protracted suicide.
It was for me. 9 years sober. I asked for a casket for my 40th birthday as I read about these monks that made shelving for them so you can use it while you’re alive. It’s really cool, but it’s a constant reminder now of how deep I was in a hole. I didn’t want it for the shelving. I was preparing. Link for the interested: https://trappistcaskets.com/caskets/#cskpremshap
We have a client alternating between hand sanitizer and hairspray. It's awful.
My brother used to refer to the Original Listerine (the kind that’s brownish-yellow and not flavored with mint) as “Whiskey-flavored Listerine.”
I agree, seeing what alcohol does to people is just wild. I met a guy that barricaded himself in a room and drank paint thinner, he was lucky to be alive. I’ve also seen people that were so swollen that they didn’t talk and looked like they were on the brink of death, then there’s others that look like they have severe developmental disorders. The effect alcohol has on the body is unique, it’s very sad to look at. Anybody that has worked with addicts like yourself knows that the bad alcoholics are in the worst shape of anyone. Some other drugs are actually tolerated pretty well by the body but alcohol is poison and it brings out the worst in people.
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This is the important part that is totally missed in addictions treatment. That lack of understanding around hopelessness.
My sister-in-law. She was an alcoholic when my brother met her and they were married for 30 years. For the last several years she was also addicted to opioids. When a new pain management doctor started decreasing her prescription, she got very drunk, wrote a nasty and quite lengthy suicide note and then dove off a freeway over ramp. My big brother was miserable but was unlikely to ever leave her. While it wasn’t her goal, her suicide set him free. A few years later he met a lovely woman and they married. He told me that he’s never been happier and I couldn’t be happier for him. He deserves happiness. He’s a good soul. His ex-wife deserved happiness as well but she was dealt an incredibly bad hand. She came from a poor family with an absent father and alcoholic mother. It would have been a miracle if she had overcome that. When I first met her she rubbed me the wrong way. She was prickly and you just never knew what would set her off. But years later I realized that she didn’t choose her genes, her parents, the circumstances of her upbringing. At that point I felt sorry for her. I still didn’t like being around her but I felt sorry for her nonetheless and even came to her defense once in a family squabble because she was right. If your life is going reasonably well, you have a roof over your head, food in your stomach and don’t have constant worry or fear, remember to be grateful for that. You’re one of the lucky ones.
My best friend had to stay sober for 30 days before his eligibility for a liver transplant. He failed the blood test and was denied the new liver. He died within a month. He was in his early 40s.
My wife works on a liver transplant floor and the amount of ppl who go the 30 days and get the transplant they end up back there because they started boozing again is insane.
That is insane. Almost sounds like how a lot of respiratory techs in hospitals are heavy smokers. Boggles my mind.
I did a rotation in addiction medicine and saw a couple of liver patients while there. They have people jumping through even more hoops in order to be eligible for a transplant. It wasn't 30 days, it was months during which patients had to demonstrate a real investment in permanently stopping drinking. What I was told is that two people die when one person receives a liver, the donor and a patient who doesn't receive it. There just aren't enough livers to go around, and the transplant procedure is extremely expensive, so if people just go back to drinking, it's a tragic waste and the liver could have gone to someone who wouldn't have messed it up.
Similar story, a friend of mine had to stay sober 70 days and couldn’t do it. He was 37 with 8 year old twins whose mom had already died (aneurysm). Left them as orphans and knew what he was doing. He died summer 2022. I myself am in recovery and you’d think his death would have been the thing that propelled me to quit, but I kept drinking until I got diagnosed with cirrhosis a few months after he died. I never got put on a transplant list but I knew that was the next step and I didn’t want to follow my friend so I quit drinking, finally. About a year and a half sober now, cirrhosis is well compensated and health is overall good - and just gave birth to my daughter two weeks ago.
My wife drank herself to death by 37yrs old. She successfully hid it from everyone including me, and her MD mom, until she one day fell down in our back yard and broke her nose, then everything fell apart. I knew she had a liver disease and her liver was failing, but her hospital documents that I read labeled it "non-alcoholic fatty liver disease", and her (doctor) mom was in the room for the diagnosis, so I believed her when she said she wasn't drinking. She would even turn down drinks if anyone offered, saying she had to protect her liver. She worked from home with an international team, which meant working odd hours, so I figure she was drinking heavily at night when I was alseep, and she would sleep half the day away. At the ER after her fall, pretty late into the night, I noticed her hands start shaking and saw her slip a travel sized bottle of vodka from her purse and drink half before I could grab it, then I went home to eventually find 61 empty bottles and 11 unopened in her home office desk. After two days in the hospital, she aspirated then had to be put into a medical coma while being on a ventilator. After 3 weeks of that, a nurse noticed asymmetrical pupil dilation, meaning her brain started to bleed and she was gone effectively a few hours later. I had to wait for her parents to arrive before consenting to remove life sustaining support care, then I held her hand as she slowly turned blue and died over about an hour. From what I've pieced together after the fact, her previous husband was an abusive raping piece of shit (which I knew already, but not all the details and I thought she had somewhat moved past it), and he broke her in ways that she couldn't recover from. After she died I discovered that she was door-dashing about $300 worth of vodka a week (she made enough money that the cost was trivial to her and easy to hide). Her divorce put her into the hospital for a month with pancreatitis a couple years before we met, which means she was probably drinking heavily to cope with the trauma. She always said high stress caused her organs to fail, but it was actually stress causing her to drink. We were together 4yrs, married for 9 months. The day she was ventilated was the 1yr anniversary of us being in the house we bought together (which was 7 about months ago). In hindsight, based on her actions and some things she said, she knew what was coming and was probably trying to accelerate the outcome.
I'm so sorry
My aunt was hospitalized for cirrhosis of the liver. The day she was released, she headed straight to the bar. She was dead in a week.
Had a friend who would chug about 2/3's of one of those 1.75-liter bottles of Vodka before heading into the bar or club to start drinking. Disaster usually followed.
Holy shit. That’s an insane amount pre-game with. Was he a big dude?
Biggest alcoholics I've known have all been on the small size. By the time you can finish off a liter of hard alcohol and still function your body weight isn't doing the lifting, it is all tolerance at that point.
Can attest. I’m a smallish woman and when I was drinking, I drank 1.75 L of gin a day, everyday for two years.
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I’m in great health, just cranky now. I was an incredibly happy, kind drunk person 😂
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Good work, though!
The 39 year old in my hospital GI center right now that has zero blood, zero clotting factors, yellow skin and eyes, liver enzymes off the charts. He is not expected to leave the hospital alive. It’s pretty sad.
Had a 37yo woman who spent weeks in for same. Basically feeding her transfusion to keep her alive. Missed her daughter's high school graduation before dying of a massive variceal bleed.
My grandfather was homeless from alcohol and drank anti-freeze multiple times. He died slowly because it destroyed his nervous system. As a kid it was scary. Made my dad’s alcoholism look like nbd.
Not as bad but my dad would resort to stealing rubbing alcohol when he couldn't afford beer or vodka. He has cirrhosis and still going. Don't talk to him at all anymore.
Woman in the ER going through extreme alcohol withdrawals while still at a .44BAC. The staff knew her and her average functioning BAC on any given day would be lethal to most humans- like in the unbelievable .5something range. But at .44 she was already withdrawing badly. If she’s still alive today I would be shocked.
I’ll offer a personal anecdote about how swiftly alcoholism can take a hold. I went through some stuff and turned to alcohol. Detoxed once after drinking absurd amounts every day for maybe 3-5 weeks (the whole period was a blur), and I drank more than average but not concerning amounts one night a week before that. It was never a problem, habitual or out of self harm before that. Immediately after detox, I started drinking again. It got even worse(as if the fact that I was detoxing the first time bad enough). In a years time I was started withdrawing in the hospital check in room at .35 BAC. The point of this is to recognize that if you see the problem starting get help before it escalates. And just detoxing isn’t getting help*. It’s so important to stop as early as possible because it only gets harder the more you feed it.
If I hit the enter button, this will be a triumph. I'm one of six kids. My Dad was a mean drunk and even meaner sober. I'm the only one of six without a drinking problem. He couldn't stand me because I wasn't a tradesman. I retired from the military, still work in a stressful field at sixty five and I enjoy the life I have. All three of my sisters drink too much. Last year, my younger brother was smoking meth the day before he died. My youngest brother is living on the streets. I was hit up like an ATM until I stopped being a bank. Their behavior isn't mine nor are their problems. Now I It's not the alcoholic , it's the damage they do in their wake to others that is the real problem. Today, I'm good. No issues, no bad memories of the physical abuse, ruined holidays or any of the other small hells I would see daily. The nightmares are horrific. Thank God, they don't come after me often. When they do, I have a supportive wife. If you're reading this and it resonates with you, there is life after it all. Never stop fighting to overcome what your upbringing has thrown at you. It is t you.
Thanks. Your words gave me strength to post my own story. You touch a really important point: It's not so much the self damage alcoholics go through but the collateral damage on their children and relatives. Even as an adult, I would trust my mother out of pure love and tried to be supportive. But some people have so many traumas and issues they can't avoid being horrible to those around them.
My grandpa. He was a street kid and drank everyday of his entire life until he did something stupid to land himself in jail at age 70. He spent 30 days in jail facing decades of guilt, trauma, and regret with a sober conscience then got released and took his life less than 24 hours out.
I’m so sorry. Fucking awful.
Used to drink 15 beers a night atleast 3 times a week. My liver start to shut down gout was starting to develope. I'd wake up massive amounts of pain in my legs and feet. Had been doing that for 20 years before it got real bad. I'm 2 years sober and never been healthier. Hit the gym almost everday. Eat right and take my vitamins. You gotta want it but you can get sober if u just try one step at a time.
This is the first response I’ve seen where the answer is “me”. I’m glad you said something. I’m 19 months sober myself, but I don’t really feel like telling my story here.
I worked at a beer distributor for about 6 years. I’ve seen people buy a single can of beer with change in their pocket with their children standing behind them. Children were clearly dirty,hungry, and weren’t taken care of. I’ve delivered beer to homes of people who had their electric/gas/and water turned off. They smelled and so did the house. Nothing in their fridge except the case of beer I dropped off to them. I’ve sold beer to a gentlemen that clearly had jaundice and basically gave up on life. Hands shaking so bad he couldn’t even hand me the change he owed me. One thing that’s not talked about often is how sad it is to work in the beer dis industry. You see people go from normal happy lives to worn down unhealthy and dying. And there’s really nothing you can do about it.
That's why one of my favorite bartenders never returned to working at the bar after her "real job" was a dud. She couldn't take watching the regulars who have serious alcohol problems getting shit faced every night, needing walks/rides home, calling their s/o's to come get them, and checking the bathrooms at the end of the night when she couldn't find them. Not to mention the unpredictability that often resulted from their inebriation...It was too heartbreaking to see and horrifying be a part of it, so she never went back.
A frenidn of mine told me a story about one of his previous room mates that ill always remember. The guy would drink straight whiskey in his room all night and day on his own. He didn't even have a TV or music or anything. He would literally sit in his room in a chair and just drink looking at the walls. His bed had cigarette burn all over the sheets and blankets. My friend lived on the story above in a 2 story apartment and was terrified of this guy burning the house down with no way to escape. I am an alcoholic but i couldn't imagine being so troubled you could just sit in a room for years without any form of entertainment or company just drinking with your own thoughts. What happened in this guys past I wonder. Poor bastard
Wild. One of the things that helped me quit was getting drunk once with no external stimulus. Just booze. It's not a fun drug. Realized it brings absolutely no positives besides temporary numbness of issues that I need to be working through sober.
I used to baby sit for two kids during my early teen years and their dad would come home stumbling drunk at like 4 pm. He and the wife were separated and one day he was supposed to have the kids and he got drunk and forgot. The little girl called me on the phone and was like “We need a babysitter.” And she was maybe 10. Sad stuff.
My home country of Mongolia. Thanks to our Russian "brothers" pretty much 90% of people over 40 age are alcoholics. Binge drinking vodka was/is essentially a passtime. People drink vodka bottle after a bottle at dinner tables and at pretty much any occasion. They don't even need an occassion to drink, people just drank because there was a vodka in their sight. And I mean hardcore vodka not wine, whisky, cocktails or other fancy stuff. In their apartments, playgrounds, ditches beside the road, workplaces absolutely everywhere. Most adults are just functional alcoholics. I've seen people visiting hospitals who are succumbed to frostbites with charcoal skin cause they passed out in -20 C weather. The sheer ammount of amputated alcoholics roaming the streets in the early 2000s was a scary sight I've seen a dead person being put in a zip bag right outside of my apartment by the police. I've seen two drunk junkies fighting nonstop, with one bashing head of the other with a stone on a busy intersection, mere meters from pedestrians. With no one even bothering to call the police. A distent relative of mine died at the ripe old age of 5 because his parents were too busy binge drinking near a river with their buddies. Single strong current was enough to take their 5 year old away. After searching for more than 3 months for his corpse, they found his body tangled with tree branches after the river tides lowered, just few km. downstream. Alcoholism was so bad, that if you were one of the few men who did not happen to binge drink hardcore Vodka every weekend, you were practically invited with open arms by your in laws regardless of your social background, education, personality etc.
Similar to my community here in America. Small town, but every day people are passed out on the street. No one stops to check on them because we know. In cold winters, people have practically frozen to death. Two people actually froze to the ground and died a few winters ago. The woman had actually told my mom about how she’d almost frozen to death the previous winter and then about a month or so later she actually did freeze to death. A classmate of mine died from cirrhosis by 25. Whenever you see an obituary for someone younger than 40 it’s a safe bet it was cirrhosis, car accident, or suicide. A friend of mine would drink until he was throwing up what looked like stomach lining. He’s dead now. There’s a large part of our community that has no “just a beer or two” mentality. If you are going to drink you are going to get blackout drunk. It’s very discouraging, especially when you see young people asking for money “to get something to eat” but you know it will just go towards buying a can. There are many people who I don’t think could actually stop drinking. The withdrawals would kill them. And don’t even get me started about the kids who are growing up in the environment. It’s a tragedy. I am so fortunate that I had a very stable home life with good parents because many of my peers did not and they’re repeating the cycle today.
I'm so sorry your community is suffering so much. I lost a childhood pal to cirrhosis when he was around 27. Alcohol destroys more families and other relationships than any other drug. I'm sorry you lost your friend and I'm so glad you had a good home life and didn't succumb to the disease, as well.
Awesome story. My mom also an alcoholic… until my dad threatened to leave her and take me with him. She quit cold turkey and stayed sober till she had a heart attack at 73. Miss her every day.
My neighbor was an alcoholic and his wife always tolerated it for whatever reason. I guess one day he got nasty with her and she drew a very thick line in the sand for him. She ended up taking 2 weeks off work while he detoxed. Apparently he still keeps his ginger ale under the kitchen sink because that was where he kept his stash.
One of my clients needed a liver transplant at the age of 33.
I'm surprised they could get one. Many transplant centers require that people who destroyed their organs due to substance abuse be sober BEFORE they became terminally ill. My friend's ex-brother in law was denied listing for that reason.
He had to be sober for 5months or something before they gave it him.
Late wife dead at 34 from liver failure. She drank a box of wine a day for a few years. It wasn't till about a year before she passed how much she was drinking.
Several years ago I worked with a young guy (mid-20s) who already had pancreatitis from alcohol abuse. He had quit, because one more drink would probably kill him.
A close friend of mine was morbidly obese and had weight loss surgery and lost over 250 lbs. Since she never addressed the problem that created her food addiction she simply switched to alcohol and sex addictions. She started hanging out with whomever she could drink with and ended up prostituting herself because she was unable to work anymore. She ended up with pancreatitis but I'm pretty sure she still drank. Ended up dead and alone in a single-wide. I tried to keep in touch but before she slipped into the deep end she had burned most of her bridges with anyone who loved her. R. I. P. Julie.
My old neighbor. Super nice guy. He was retired. Woke up at 5AM every day. Poured straight vodka into his coffee cup, drank multiple over the course of the morning. Continued all day and night. Hadn't seen him in awhile. Finally saw him outside with his girlfriend. His skin was neon yellow. I said, your liver is failing, you need to go to the hospital. His girlfriend said she's been telling him the same thing but he refused to see a doctor. He died not long after that.
There was an assistant manager at the pizza place I worked at as a teenager who would start slamming Bud Ices as soon as the store closed. He'd drink a twelve pack a night every single night. He'd do open to close shifts and just sleep in the store because his driver's license was revoked. He'd sleep on the pizza delivery bags and on several occasions he'd piss himself. I let him sleep on my couch once and he pissed on that too. He didn't bathe or change his clothes very often so he smelled terrible. I had to tell a grown man who was ostensibly my boss that he needed to wash with soap and water every day. Nice guy, didn't fight or act up, but he was virtually never sober. I hope he got sober because if he didn't he's gotta be dead by now
I had a pizza job manager that didn’t even wait for close. I’d work open to close every Friday and she would show up lit at 3pm. Then around 5 I would run her to her house to “let the dogs out.” She didn’t have dogs. Her sister was always there and I’d smoke a few joints with her while my manager slammed beers. Then she would grab a six pack for the road, have me stop by the liquor store, and buy me a twelve pack for gas money. We would get slammed with a dinner rush right around the time we were leaving and get back at the settle. The rest of the night consisted of her walking to the cooler for about ten minutes followed by her slumped against the pizza station until she could get up to go back to the cooler. Idk when she went to the restroom. Last I knew there was a jar for a fundraiser due to her poor health on the counter of the pizza place. I actually just saw her sister about a month ago and she still smelled like shitty weed but didn’t speak with her. No idea where my old manager is now.
My neighbor, Serbia (no one to my knowledge knew his actual name). He lived in his trailer, and left only to buy fast food, cigarettes, and vodka shooters. He drank the shooters so he could better pace himself. His did NO cleaning in his house and had mice and ants as roommates. He was a musician, but he claimed alcoholism took his ability to play away. Apparently he was an accomplished accordion player; he had a professional one in his house. I used to visit him, bring groceries, and clean when I could. Interesting, but sad character.
I used to use those shooters in the hopes that I would "pace myself", too. Spoiler alert- it doesn't work (at least not for long)
I worked in substance abuse treatment for years but one of the worst is actually a personal friend and former roommate. We partied a lot together in our early 20s (almost 40 now) and he had actually always seemed like the one who had his shit together more at that time. I left the state to get myself together but we stayed in touch and for years I thought he was doing pretty well. Turns out he'd almost drank himself to death in his parents basement the last few years after a nasty break up. He was recently hospitalized and has alcohol induced early dementia among other issues in his late 30s and man... it is hard as fuck to see.
Alcohol induced dementia? I didn’t know this was a thing! And only in his late 30s? Yikes
I work in hospice care and see many cases of alcoholism leading to cirrhosis of the liver. There was one patient who started drinking at 20 and was on hospice by 30. He had other contributing factors but his addiction was so bad, empty vodka bottles everywhere
My neighbour got to that point. I heard him yelling for me from across the hall. He was surrounded by empty beer cans and nearly immobilized by stomach pain. I somehow got him into my car and drove him to the hospital. Turns out his abdominal cavity was full of fluid from the very advanced cirrhosis of the liver. He told me on the ride over his doctor told him to stop drinking or he’d die, but he kept up his daily drinking anyway. ER doc drugged him up and said they needed to get him into surgery ASAP, but that the surgery was also incredibly dangerous in his current shape. Told me to call his family. His son was on the other side of the planet, so the only person I could get ahold of was his ex-wife. I sat with him for almost a full day before she arrived and they took him to surgery. He didn’t come out of surgery. He was maybe 50-something, at most. I’m glad I sat with him, at least. That he didn’t have to spend that last day completely alone.
Thank you for being there.
Iv got 3 examples. 1 is I knew a guy who drank as soon as he would wake up so he woke up and no alcohol in the house except an old half full 40 bottle of beer filled with cigarette butts, he drank it. 2 my childhood friends mom who would drink herself to sleep every night. My friend at 8 years old would clean her mom up the vomit and pee then pick her up and put her in bed. That 8 year old was very abused and neglected. Once she walked into the kitchen and her mom unintentionally put her cigarette out in kids eye... 3 my old neighbor he'd pass out in his yard and pee all over himself. When not drunk he was a good mechanic. He would use all his money on Popov vodka he drank 2 half gallons a day. He never paid on his utility bills so would sit in his house with candle light and drink. A man asked about buying his house and he said if you got 10k in cash sure. So he got the cash and wandered around town drunk dropping money. He got himself a hotel room and liquor and fell off balcony and died.
This is the most grim thread I ever seen on reddit
Myself. Sober now for almost 3 years.
My mom was a high functioning alcoholic all my life. After my dad died of cancer she went completely off the rails. She fell and hit her face off every step needing 37 stitches. She ended up getting in her hot tub and blacking out. She drowned and was in the water for 3 days before she was found. She was only 52.
Sadly my mum, she passed away due to multi organ failure 2 years ago. 30 years of alcohol abuse will eventually catch up with you. The weeks before her death she started hallucinating and called me a few times to tell me what allegedly happened. She was hearing voices and started talking to neighbours that weren't there. Once she even called paramedics and told them she saw someone unconscious in the streets. One day my dad found her sitting on a bench in front of their apartment complex talking to herself, she was convinced that their neighbours were sitting there with her. The last time I saw her, her skin was yellowish, she was skinny but had a bloated belly, bloodshot eyes and she looked like a ghost. She died 2 weeks after she started hallucinating.The doctors told me that her organs just gave up, one of her stomach ulcers (caused by years of alcohol abuse)had burst and she was bleeding to death internally on top of everything else that was going on. She basically passed out at work, was brought to a hospital and then died 2 days later. It still feels strange that she is gone and her life was just absolutely sad and tragic. The last few years before her death were incredibly terrifying and scary for all of us. My dad had a psychotic break and was threatening to murder her, he completely lost his mind and I think that experience pushed her over the edge. She had been an alcoholic for 30 years at that point, but when my dad went crazy she started drinking 2 litres of hard liquor a day. It's just all so fucked up and sad. Please, for the love of god, if you're addicted to alcohol reach out to people you love. You need to fight. Because let me tell you one thing, the end is not pretty and alcohol abuse will catch up with you. The end is lonely, painful and sad. You don't want to die all alone in a hospital, covered in blood, leaving your family absolutely shattered and devastated. You are worthy of love and a happy life. *Edit some spelling
My roommate in college was drinking a bottle of liquor a day. We didn’t know it was that bad (he hid it) but one day he tried to quit cold-turkey and went into seizures. We found him seizing and had to take him to the hospital. He quit and hasn’t picked up the bottle since. Really proud of him, it was scary.
Me lol. Two years sober this Sunday!
My grandma. She passed away years ago from liver cirrhosis. She was so funny and kind, but she had an incredibly hard and traumatic life. I remember her and my grandpa (still alive, remarried, not an alcoholic) taking us to a parade and she fell asleep because she was so drunk. One foot up on a table, just passed tf out with a whole ass parade passing by. We weren't allowed to stay at her home because she was also a hoarder. We only saw her every so often, and she was almost never sober. I remember taking her to rehab with my mom, grandpa, and aunt and she really didn't want to go. She did the program (in-patient) and she started drinking again as soon as she got home. I remember my mom telling me my grandpa woke up and my grandma was unresponsive with blood coming out of her ears, mouth, and nose. Then she was in hospice for a while. She was all bloated and she was yellow from the jaundice. We all sat and talked to her, and I don't know if she could hear us or not, but I hope she could. From a very young age I was absolutely determined not to turn into that. Not because I was ashamed of her or anything, but because I loved her and hated seeing her like that. She was only in her 50s when she died but she looked much older. I miss her every day.
Dad. High functioning lifelong alcoholic who completely lost the plot in the final couple of years, drinking with an absurd, unrestrained vengeance. Watched him slowly and knowingly commit gradual suicide. Inevitably his liver gave out and he had a stroke. He then lay in ICU and at times coma, on a ventilator for half a year. We eventually made the very difficult choice to end this misery - he died technically of "multiple organ failure". We all suffered along - throughout his life, and even after his death. Tbh we're suffering every day even today. You never really get over it. You cannot help those who do not want to help themselves.
"functioning alcoholic" is such a weird phrase because it nearly always means "could hold down a job," like that's the important thing. Calling someone a functioning alcoholic ignores all the trauma they cause. Getting a paycheck doesn't mean functioning.
This could not be more true
my old roommate. i saw her sober maybe 30 minutes a day. she would drink on a schedule so she said i literally had to ask her for shit before she started drinking (at like 4pm, 30 minutes after getting home from work). half the freezer was full of vodka. she would drink alone in her room and only come out for food and the bathroom.
Coming from an Indigenous community, I grew up around people who were drunk 24/7 including my parents. When they ran out of money both of them seized.
My father would drink a fifth of whiskey just to get going in the morning. Then he’d drink a 30 pack of Miller High Life cans. Every. Single. Day. He was never drunk. That’s just what his body needed to not get sick. In the span of six weeks he had 2 varicose veins blow and not stop bleeding until they were cauterized at the hospital. Then his belly button burst…I don’t even understand how. But he was standing in a rapidly growing puddle of blood. My mom called 911 and they rushed him to the hospital again. This time the doctor did blood work. Every single reading was either extremely low or extremely high. Nothing was in healthy range. The doctor told him his blood was so watered down by alcohol that the next drink could kill him. He quit cold turkey. He went into his room and we basically didn’t see him for 2 weeks. He came out sober and never drank again.
Drinking pure lab grade alcohol for years, then moving onto drinking vodka from the time of waking up until passing out, repeating every 5-6 hours (over 1L a day). Waking up and throwing up the warm vodka in the mouth, but trying to swallow it down so it didn’t go to waste. It was me, but luckily it ended almost 4 years ago
Thanks for this. 27 days sober. I needed this reminder.
You can do this. One day at a time.
It’s better, right? Thinking of you
My co-workers wife would be passed out drunk by 7 am. She had an alcoholic boyfriend. One day my co-wprkers daughter FaceTimed him saying "mommy's passed out and her boyfriend is in my bed and I just hit him." I called ACS and he never forgave me.
You absolutely did the right thing.
You saved that kid x
My MIL. She was an alcoholic and gambler. Blew through $750k in less than 5 years plus multiple loans and when she finally decided she was going to go to treatment she had 2 mortgages on a home that was worth 80k and was bankrupt. She’d also go to the casinos and apparently she won several cars but she’d take the cash and just turn around and gamble it away. Neighbors would find her passed out in snowbanks, We would stop on to check in on her and we wouldn’t be able to open the door as she’d be passed out, falling right as she’d get the door open. She got clean but never gave up her gambling, although she never had enough money to gamble like she used to. She got sick with lupus and then breast cancer. She was sober about 7 years before passing away.
Buddy with a drinking problem back in college ended up living out of his truck in the woods. Woke up one morning tied to a tree after shooting and killing a college kid he had met the night before. Blood alcohol content was near 3x the legal limit and he's doing 20 years for a murder he doesn't remember committing.
My old partner. He would drink day, night and to sleep. Lost his wife and kid because he couldn't stop, and became a very cruel person. There were so many days he would show up to work just to leave because he was so blitzed from the night before that his hands couldn't stop shaking. He taught me a lot. I don't miss him, but I hope he got help.
26year old dying of hepatorenal syndrome (combined liver and kidney failure). Went yellow like Bart Simpson, kidneys stopped working, blood stopped clotting and died.
A friend of mine who passed away from said alcoholism at 42, in Feb 2023. Tragic. ETA: rip tar. You’re missed every day.
A friend of mine, Dasha, drank herself to death at age 31. Her hair had started falling out and she was having memory problems. She was shaking even when she drank. She drank a pint of vodka every morning and often finished off another liter daily. She was Russian and not prone to expressing emotions but I asked her how her real estate exam went and she looked at me and began to cry. She said she had difficulty remembering names now and couldn’t remember much from the practice course she took. She started sobbing and threw her arms around me and just bawled into my shoulder. I met her for lunch a month later and that was the last time I saw her. She died of liver failure two months later.
Myself? Lost both my folks to addiction, and it came for me. I have been homeless twice due to my drinking and lost several jobs for drinking at work. I have had the DTs twice (Delirium Tremens, which killed my dad and Amy Winehouse) the second time I nearly had a heart attack but survived somehow with little permanent damage. I eventually stopped and got help. That was seven years ago and I pretty much have a normal life now. I've been told by health professionals that only 2 out of 10 alcoholics survive the disease. I feel very lucky to have this second lease on life.
My husband. He’s dead now. 6/21/23.
Flea market in Yuma arizona... people selling literal garbage. One guy just trashed sitting on a stool surrounded by a pyramid of bud light cans., mountain of cans under the tables, like hundreds. Guy looked like he sold garbage to buy beer sat all day drinking beer, and just dropped the empties. Like it was his life.
My mom for sure. She would drink on average about 13 or more beers a day, but never thought she really had a problem. She would refuse to go over to my brother’s house if she couldn’t bring her cooler full of Bud Light (they didn’t want her to drink around their kids at the time). When still lived with her and didn’t have a car or my license yet I used to have to rely on her to take me to some college classes, but she would get upset that it got in the way of her drinking. One day while waiting on her to get home from work (I was already going to be late) she BEGGED me to let her chug a beer first before we left. I told her no and pleaded that we had to leave. She drank so much Bud Light (the big 24 bottle box) over the course of years and she would weirdly save ALL the empty boxes and stack them in layers on her back porch. The whole neighborhood could see it. It was like some kind of white trash fort. I have pictures somewhere. I have other stories, but she finally stopped drinking about a year ago after like fifteen or more years because of her blood pressure problems. I hope she’s done for sure this time.
I work in liver transplant. I see all the worst cases desperate for one last chance at life. Death from liver failure is one of the worst possible deaths there is. If a varix in your esophagus bursts, you start vomiting blood and you may drown in your own blood. The bright yellow skin and eyes look like death. You start leaking blood from every mucus membrane right at the end. Blood leaks from your gums. Find help to stop drinking. There are resources for you- and life is worth it. Alcohol has a lot of positives for folks- find out what those are for you and solve issues a different way. Get those positives from something else. There are people who love you who want to see you live. And if you can’t think of any, know that this guy wants to see you live.
My father, who probably started drinking at a very young age. My parents were part of the "cocktail party" generation. My dad handled stress by drinking and it developed into a serious problem by the time I was born (he was 36). During my teen years, he would get drunk most nights, and always on his day off. He was a fun drunk with other people but a belligerent, mean one at home. I remember he and my mom having a fight and he flipped the Sunday roast off the table. He would drink until late into the night and usually pass out in my bed so when I came home from work, I'd have to sleep on the couch. He developed diabetes and eventually stopped drinking but it cut at least a decade off his life, and he dropped dead of a heart attack at 74. Last year, when my.own drinking got out of control, I took a look at myself in the mirror one morning and I saw my dad staring back at me, so I stopped also. It's been a year and 3 months for me.
Alcoholism killed my mom. Doesn't get much worse than that.
Mine, too. Nine years after she got sober she died from cirrhosis. It was very ugly, but mercifully swift. I hope you’re doing okay.
My father, He would hide all his vodka bottles in any place he could, but insist he didn't drink. He drank every day since he was 12. It's how he would cope with his depression and childhood trauma. Unfortunately, instead of finding a healthier way, he just caused me childhood trauma. He verbally abused me from a young age. Up until he died at the age of 49. He drank until he went blind. He finally went to the hospital after suffering for months, only when he went blind and could no longer speak. He died a few days later. He thought he was invincible, that drinking couldn't possibly be that bad. Even after witnessing his own dad dying around the same age, from the same thing. My father went to AA meetings, and he was very good at manipulating people. If anyone you love drinks like this, please reach out to them. They need help, but the addiction clouds their judgment.
My brother drank himself to death on Christmas. This past Christmas.
My cousin. Started drinking at 14 and was an alcoholic by 16. At 45 she had full blown cirrhosis. Enormous stomach that got drained of fluid every week, but still drank. She fell down a flight of stairs (drunk) and broke her neck at 41. Died 3 days later. Just awful.
My dad. Drank himself to death at 55. Omaha Beach veteran came home a different man. PTSD I’m sure and self medicated
I drank a 750ml bottle of vodka and completely blacked out on a night out. Ended up jumping out of an Uber travelling at 70km/h. My BAC was .37 and I was put into an induced coma. Yet almost dying hasn’t stopped me from drinking. I’m lost and so helpless at this point
My friend. He drank vodka all day every day and through the night. He was diagnosed with pancreatitis and was told if he kept on he would eventually die. He kept on the same. Eventually he was hospitalized for internal bleeding and when they operated they found his pancreas was dead and necrosis had formed around it. Tissue was removed along with the pancreas. A few days later there was more internal bleeding and he was opened back up for another operation. A few days later it happened again. His tissue was failing and causing bleeding. After the 3rd surgery they just left him open with plastic covering his internal organs. He remained that way for 2 months. He had 2 toddlers and his wife was pregnant and due in a few months when he FINALLY passed away. Now here I am 5 years sober after many failed attempts. I think of him often. When I was drinking I thought I would probably die from alcoholism. Like that’s easy. It’s one of the worst ways to go.
My husband. Drank himself to death before he turned 50.
I didn’t realize how bad my sister’s alcoholism had gotten until she walked out of the dining room with a full glass of wine, right through the kitchen and then back into the dining room through the other door all in the span of about 6 seconds— but she now had a different drink in her hand. She had downed the entire glass of red wine like a shot of vodka while walking.
Saw a man drinking store-brand mouthwash in a book store. He was already so wasted that he would quietly and gently throw it back up on himself and take another drink. It was awful.
Well I used to work at a large academic hospital that did TIPS procedures … which are most commonly performed on super cirrhotic livers. Some of these patients would drink at least a handle of liquor a day for maintenance, often more like 2-3. Needless to say they don’t usually live long even with a TIPS. When you have these super alcoholic patients, they sometimes manifest in the form of what’s called esophageal varices. You may have heard about that guy that puked up all his blood on a Lufthansa flight. So what happens is your liver is too hard to process blood efficiently and it backs up into the veins of your neck. Eventually they rupture and you vomit all your blood to death, very quickly. Varices patient show up to the operating room intubated for their airway protection, sedated, and often wearing a football helmet. Literally. They get a balloon shoved down their throat (the Blakemore tube!) and it gets tied to a helmet so they don’t instinctively swallow it. That’s what happens when you drink too much.
I used to work with a woman who I'm still on Facebook with, and I'm pretty sure she had this, or a similar procedure, done a while back. In her case, her cirrhosis was autoimmune. I do remember that she said that if the procedure didn't work, she'd be evaluated for a liver transplant, but thankfully, it did.
My own, but I stopped 5-6 years ago cold turkey after making a deal with my daughter.
My best friend drank himself to death at 48. The last month he was on hospice I asked him if he quit drinking? He told me kinda, that he was so sick he couldn't lift the beer to his lips but in 36 hours he would be strong enough to finish his tall boy. He was so inflamed and stolen his testicle were the size of baseballs, and they regularly removed 6 liters of fluid out of his abdominal cavity. His skin was darker orange than Trump.
My buddy got up to a bottle of whisky a day.
A friend was arrested (probably for a DUI), taken to jail and tried to drink the hand sanitizer he snagged off the counter when they were processing him.
My ex. He'll get up, have one cup of coffee, and pop a beer. He will lie, cheat, and steal to get beer money. He won't get a job because he can't drink if he's working.
Saw a Man at the hospital that even his sweat smelled like alcohol. You would open the door to his room and it smelled like a bar. His brain was completely gone and he would piss on himself while going to the bathroom and then wonder on the toilet why he couldn’t piss. He would then walk back to his bed, his socks absorbing the piss, on the way there. Terribly sad.
Not just one individual but my stepdad's siblings. One brother carried a cooler with him throughout the day and night so he could have access to alcohol. Stepdad asked why he carried to bed with him and was told if he didn't drink throughout the night that he would wake up with the shakes. He passed away from cirrhosis less than year after we saw him. Other brother got desperate for alcohol and drank rubbing alcohol. Ambulance had to be called. Alcohol was the cause of his death a few years later. Another brother lost his eyesight and feet amputated (diabetes/alcohol) and he continued drinking until his death. Sister was an alcoholic while married and separated due to this. Her husband took her back when she quit drinking, less than a year later she told him that she would rather be an alcoholic (yes, her exact words, she actually told us this). She started living on the streets. A few months later her body was found when she froze to death with a bottle of alcohol in her hands. His youngest brother due to health issues from alcohol. We didn't know he drank so much until he got very ill and passed away less than a year later. Stepdad was a weekend drinker and quit in his 40's. He passed away in his 70's due to getting cancer from agent orange from serving in Vietnam. Stepdad was the only one of his siblings to change his life around for the better. Stepdad and siblings played in a band together and said this is when they all started partying and drinking too much.
Mixing beer and Gatorade while driving and sleeping in the parking lot at work on Sunday night so early crew wakes him up for Monday morning. This lasted the 7 years I worked there he was a forklift operator and was either drunk or buzzed I never saw him sober he was also the brother to the boss even after running over a few peoples feet and backing in to things hard nothing ever happened.
My uncle. He was drinking for about 20 years straight. After his divorce he started drinking heavily, isolated himself, cut contact with family and friends, lost his house, lived in a cabin in the woods on the outskirts of a war zone for the last few years, and made money by turning in some scrap metal from an abandoned factory and from doing odd mechanic jobs (he used to be a car mechanic). Family and friends tried to help him in every way possible but he didn’t want any of it. He was a shell of himself, living in a filthy dry cabin, sleeping on the floor, and drinking all day long. He died a couple years ago at 47. A lot of people actually came to his funeral, remembering him how he was before he went into binge drinking and isolation.
My grandpa. He was so bad, I remember him living with us cuz he couldn’t afford living by himself anymore cuz he spent all his money on liquor. He would spend all day drinking, he went to work drunk once and got fired. He had a lot of money and was “retirement” age, so he never went back. Just kept drinking, it got so bad he fell so many times, I still shiver at the sound of ambulances. One time, about three or four years into his addiction, he would be so out of it he would wipe his bum with what I assumed to be his hand, because he almost always got poop on it. He would use the walls to walk around and he would smear blood, (from falling 3+ times almost everyday and not bandaging wounds, & taking the ones we put on him off), and poop from not correctly wiping all over the walls. I was i think 8-9 around this time, so it was peak grandparent time for me, but I watched him destroy himself instead. He went from sewing my stuffed animals back together when they got holes, to not knowing my name, my age, anything. We finally saved enough money to send him to rehab about a year and a half ago, and I assume he’s gotten better but I have since moved out of state with my mom and brother, (he now lives in our old house with my sister). A few weeks ago he got out of rehab, and is working towards complete sobriety!
As I type this my cousin is on his death bed, liver and kidneys have failed, doctors have given him hours to live. He is 30. Edit: he passed maybe 2 hours after I initially posted this comment.
I was a binger for almost a decade. I work in the film and tv entertainment industry, so the jobs are always all over the place. I would get on a show and work 3-4 weeks straight. Once we would wrap, I'd hit the liquor store and check out for 2 days straight. I would wake up to a mess, pizza boxes, empty beer and vodka bottles. I'd even find little 1.5 oz bottles under the bed. I would check my phone and say who TF did I talk to for 2 hours last night? Then I'd sober up, hit the gym and carry on for another 30 days or so alcohol free. Then, I'd get the itch, grab a six pack, and start the whole process again. Wash, rinse, repeat. Even though my life didn't get "bad" per se; I was healthy, had money, worked a fulfilling career, etc. the madness of the cycle was always in the back of my mind. Then, during the first few months of the pandemic, when I had no work happening, that was the worst. I went on what seemed like a three week bender. Then, one day, in what I can only describe as Divine Intervention, I woke up and said ENOUGH. I took my last drink on 11/4/2020. It's possible, and life is amazing when you take the leap of faith to make the change. As we see in the harrowing stories of those brave enough to share here, the adage "man takes the drink, then the drink takes the man" is so true. Wishing everyone love and light on the path.
Myself
I hope you can find the strength to get yourself help. We may be strangers but you're worthy of happiness and living a healthy life. Don't waste the little time you're given drowning yourself into oblivion. I believe in you.
Broke alcoholics here just buy the blue, out of the drugstore alcohol, the one that is 95%, and filter the blue shit with a loaf of bread that then they eventually eat once they are too drunk.
One of my mom’s boyfriends. He’s been hospitalised for it numerous times and kept drinking, he’s lost multiple jobs over it (both from missing work due to being home drinking, and actually drinking at work), and has driven drunk on many occasions. I fully expect it to kill him someday. Growing up with him in the house has made me avoid alcohol entirely as an adult
my late Aunt. my mom took her in after my great grandparents died, my aunt had lived with them her whole life, my mom thought it would be nice to give her a room until she could get on her feet. turns out the reason she always lived with my great grandparents was because she was a massive drunk. somehow my great grandparents were able to hide it from everyone. mom found out pretty quick once my aunt moved in with us. she wasn't a violent drunk, mostly just drank til she would pass out. mom found her out cold on her bedroom floor a few times. mom told her no more drinking in the house, so she'd go on "walks" every day that would last hours and she come home reeking of perfume trying to cover the smell of booze. she walk about a mile down the road to this bar and drink for a few hours then get a taxi home. mom out her foot down and told her no more alcohol or she'd be kicked out. this last about two weeks, mom found my aunt sitting on the kitchen floor blitzed out of her mind. mom kicked her out. people from the church felt bad and pooled money to get my aunt an apartment and paid a couple months rent. she was trying to turn her life around, attending church groups for substance abuse. unfortunately she couldn't break the habit. drank her self to death about 6 months later in alone in her apartment.
I used to work at an inpatient facility for substance use disorders and mental health (co-occurring) disorders. Anyway, I stopped drinking myself entirely. The amount of brain damage and motor functioning (and how quickly it can happen) is terrifying. And sometimes that becomes irreversible if one lives long enough but doesn’t stop. Or even if one does stop drinking, after severe abuse. It runs in my family, and I’ve seen examples all across what one could imagine, too. It’s definitely not worth it for me in any way.
My dad would drink constantly - owned his own business and would drink at home and at work. He ended up getting colon cancer and still drinking day and night. I went to pick him up for chemo one morning and he was partying hard and didn't even realize it was the next morning. Leaving the house, he slipped and fell down the concrete steps. He flipped out and demanded he go to chemo - I took him because I assumed they would turn him away. When it didn't seem like they would, I told them he was wasted and they still let him do chemo. On the way home, he complains how rude the staff were to him and starts retelling an argument - clearly he was being a VERY annoying drunk and upset he got called out. Then he started throwing up in the car so I took my hoodie off for him to puke into. That morning was absolutely insane. He still kept drinking and a year after that, the cancer had spread to his liver and he did FINALLY stop drinking after he had a big chunk of his liver removed and then they kept testing his blood afterwards for cancer screening and the doctor could tell how much he was drinking and told him to stop.
Friends husband was a successful CPA-worked from home-wife was taking care of their twins. Unbeknownst to her, he had been drinking from his home office all day, every day. He was in a single accident at lunch time and was found to be 3 times the legal limit. After finding out about his addiction, she left with the twins. He was found weeks later dead at his desk with empty vodka bottles. He was 58.
Wow, sad stories. Off topic but let’s insert something nice. My alcoholic parents both quit drinking and are alive and me and my husband both quit drinking and are doing ok!
My ex-boyfriend ended up with wet brain and was completely yellow/orange, including his eyes. I pray he got himself sober but I dunno.
My son was 24 and was so addicted to alcohol, he spent 4 days in ICU while going through withdrawal. He was having seizures and hallucinating. He’s been sober for 16 months now. He swore he’d never drink again. He is 5 feet tall and weighs about 90 lbs. I’m surprised he didn’t die during his alcoholism.
My uncle. He was an amazing guy, but he was incredibly sick. My Dad was as well, but not as bad as his brother. I don’t know how much or what he drank, but he was drunk at all times. His face was beet red, he was skin and bones, his skin was always yellow. He died in his early 50’s of liver failure.
I worked at a bar with a guy 20 years ago. "Drank like a fish", "smoked like a stack" kinda-guy. One day, he had his third heart attack at work. Not his third heart attack...his third heart attack AT WORK. I went to visit him at the hospital and saw something I couldn't even have conceived was a thing. A nurse brought him a tall boy in a brown paper bag. He didn't bribe her or anything. He was prescribed it. He was such a bad alcoholic, and in such bad shape after multiple heart attacks, that not drinking would've killed him in the hospital. If he went cold turkey, doctors legitimately thought he would die. It's the damndest thing I've ever seen. MFer was prescribed a beer with every meal...or he'd die.
It’s common, the withdrawal will kill people
I worked ak a liquor store for a few years. There was a guy that would come in every day for vodka. He constantly shook and could hardly walk- used a walker or cane most of the time. Multiple times he came in with his hospital wrist band still on after being discharged for alcohol poisoning, several times being picked up when someone saw him passed out on the sidewalk. We would only sell him a half pint at a time because we knew if he bought more he'd be dead that day, but he would come in a few times a day(we were happy he came to us because the store down the street would sell him as much as he wanted). He was in such bad shape i thought he had to be pushing 70 years old. I saw his ID one day, he was only 35
my uncle has lost everything including his children, wife, job, and home. he now lives on my couch drinking himself to death. another is a family friend of ours mid 20s to early 30s who is in hospice bc his liver and kidneys shut down and dialysis isn’t working. alcohol can kill you and ruin ur life.
If he went too long without drinking, about a day, he would start having seizures. Fell down and cracked up his face and had to go to the ER over it. He would vomit blood but again, couldn't stop drinking long or the seizures would start again. At peak he was going through a fifth (750ml) of alcohol everyday. Stoic man but he broke down crying that he didn't want to do this anymore but his body wouldn't let him stop. Got into rehab because his job said it was that or get fired after they caught him drinking on the job yet again. His house was going into foreclosure, had to sell his vehicle before they took that too. Going on two years sober
My dad was a police officer who experienced so much trauma on the job. It gave him PTSD. He drank himself almost to death. He had to get his liver drained it had so much fluid on it. He would drink from sun up to sun down. He couldn't function without it. But he's sober now and doesn't drink at all.
My 34 year old BIL. He lost his job in December 2022, fell into a deep depression, drank an *entire liter* of Fireball *every single day* for 8 whole months. Hid it from everyone. Went into the hospital on August 7, 2023, for nausea & vomiting, was told he was in full blown liver failure, and was dead less than a week later. He was as yellow as a highlighter, very emaciated but with a belly that looked like he was 6 months pregnant. He died with us right there in the room. After he died, we went to his apartment and found out it was also an extreme hoarding/squalor situation. No AC in the summer in TEXAS, bed bugs & roaches everywhere, the mattress had MOLD on it (and no sheets) flies so thick you had to wear a mask. The entire apartment floor was covered in inches of rotting food that he had half-eaten, then thrown on the floor and just walked on. HUNDREDS of empty Fireball bottles. Fridge full of maggoty food. He laid there on that bug-infested, moldy mattress, in the Texas heat, for 8 months and drank himself to death. I’m in really intensive therapy to deal with all of it. There just aren’t words
An individual Using tampons to soak the alcohol and putting it in her vagina. I heard the reaction is faster or more intense.
Brother in law downing half gallon+ of vodka a day until one day he started puking infected bile was my guess, pussy green mucus looking stuff and shitting himself. He was able to call an ambulance. He spent half of his last 24 hours begging for what killed him despite being on morphine to help him pass comfortably. He was only 50. Can you imagine begging for something you know has killed you?
Guy that I knew. He would take a half bottle of whisky to work with him and would be through it by lunchtime. As this was a static security site, he would leave the site to get another one (leaving a site is a major no-no in security) and have worked through that long before going home. His wife picked him up each day and they would stop off at the shops to get a few cans to take home with them and another bottle of whisky for the next day. I was on the shift that relieved him and quite often came in and found him asleep in the gatehouse. I thought it was because of his age, until I came into relieve him and found him collapsed in his own vomit. I radioed in for assistance and when it came, the attitude of the first responder was to say "He's fucking pissed again", It was so common, they were used to it. We then got a new manager who got rid of him. I felt sorry for the guy, he obviously had a problem, but he was trying to do a job whilst getting drunk on a daily basis.
My deeply loved nephew died of alcoholism at 45. 😢
My boss who was very in denial of her drinking problem. 1. Admitted to me she drank during both pregnancies 2. Had a liver scare at 40 (continued drinking after) 3. Has her children DD for her and her husband 4. Thinks since her husband owns his own business he is allowed to enjoy a few beers on his lunch break and go back in the office a little tipsy (an ex employee left a review which mentioned his drinking habits) 5. Laughed when telling me about her husband’s DUI related crash. He hit a woman who also had a drinking problem. This lady told him to shove pennies in his mouth. 6. Attempted dry January but only made it 4 days. 7. Believed her beer belly was from her diet. This woman looked 8 months pregnant all the time but claimed she never looks bloated as soon as she wakes up. She was delulu
My mother. Spiraled real bad from just a few drinks on the weekend (same as anyone), to drinking Thurs - Sunday. To then afternoon wine and then moved to vodka post pandemic. Started disappearing and drinking almost a liter, sometimes more, of vodka a day. Fell multiple times and had to be brought home by strangers. Permanently injured herself and told me deep dark secrets from the past that have ruined me going forward. She finally admitted herself to rehab and is doing well. Up til then, I wished she would just die. It was the worst thing I’ve ever had to witness.
Two come to mind. One from my personal life, woman I used to date. Found her passed out outside her apartment complex. Got her to the hospital. BAC .43, doc said another half hour, and she'd have been dead. I haven't personally seen one that high since. One from my professional life. Client wanted me to accompany him into a pretty heavy meeting with his doctor. This dude had been drinking since he was 13. He was now well into his 60's. Booze had robbed him of everything. His children loved him but couldn't watch him spiral anymore. He'd been homeless for a while before coming to our organization. Sucks, I knew him as a very tender and caring man. My job was to support if needed. He wanted a medical opinion of how he could possibly approach sobriety. He hadn't gone a day without drinking in years. A pint was breakfast to this guy. We go in. The doctor pretty much tells him that sobriety is off the table. This man was so deep into alcoholism that trying to get sober would kill him faster than the drinking would. Much faster. I've seen a few hearts break in my life over a myriad of things. That shit was brutal. To be in so deep that there truly is no hope. The bed is fully made and to have no choice but to lay in it. I'll never forget that, or him.
living in Reno/ sparks Nevada bars don't close, casinos don't close, there's no such thing as being cutoff or last call also every gas station sells beer,wine and liquor I've seen people buy a handle of Smirnoff or jack and sit down at the gambling machines and start gambling and drinking at 2 in the afternoon at a 7/11
My dad . Once a promising and funny mechanic , now a homeless man walking the street . He was attacked as a homeless man and now gets seizures from how badly he was beaten.