Posted by mark on August 16, 2000, at 22:34:57
In reply to Re: Problems with Alcohol - Reasons to Stop (long), posted by allisonm on August 15, 2000, at 21:36:29
Thank you Allison for your story. I've been around addiction all my life and have seen it in various forms
and your story really struck a chord with me.I think to a point that addiction is genetic. Both my father and my brother died as a result of a chemical
addiction. My father was an alcoholic and my brother was an alcoholic/drug user. My parents were older when
I was born so I never knew any of my grandparents. But through some cursory geneology I've found signs pointing
to addiction back several generations. It's seems to run on the male side of the family. My father's brother
was also an alcoholic, but his sisters never drank a drop as far as I know.My father was a hard drinker all of his life and at age 55 began having heart problems. While his liver
seemed to be able to handle all of the alcohol, his heart was being ravaged. I never thought of the heart
in conjunction with alcohol-related illnesses until his doctor told me about it. Like your mother ill health,
jail, car crashes, etc. didn't stop his drinking. He finally died at age 72 in hospice where his esophogus was
so damaged that it continually produced mucuous . He couldn't eat and the mucous in his stomach made him
so sick that what they could get down him he threw back up. He couldn't get proper nourishment and his heart
finally gave out.My brother was the greatest guy you've ever met. Full of charm, personality, and always quick with a smile. I
can't remember ever seeing him drunk. He always seemed to have a beer in his hand, but never seemed drunk. I never
knew anything about the drugs until my mom told me. I was three years old when he went to Vietnam. When he came
back my mom said she found syringes a few times in his coat. Whatever he was into all those years he seemed to be
able to handle it until his second marriage fell apart. He always had a job, money, family, all the trappings of
success until then. He just 'dropped out'. I never got the whole story. I guess he was a street person doing what
he had to to get money. He would call my mom once a month to let her know he was alright. Never any details. Just
that he was still alive. That lasted the better part of 10 years. One of the last calls came from a Veterans
Administration hospital. Someone had dropped him in a crumpled heap at their emergency room. He told my mom that
it was just a reaction to blood pressure medication he was on and he would be out in a couple of days because he
was starting a new job. A couple of days later he was dead. His body had shut down from cirrhosis of the liver
from alcohol abuse and hepititis C. The VA chaplain said he was one of the kindest souls he ever met. Always
grinning a toothless grin because his teeth had been knocked out after being rolled so many times on the street.
Remembering to ask the Chaplain how he was doing and if he was ok. My brother requested a closed casket funeral
so I never got to see him for the last time. I guess he looked so bad that he didn't want anyone to see him. I
didn't cry at the funeral because I knew he was finally free of whatever demons were haunting him. I did cry
when I went through his personal effects and found his ID card. His face looked like it had caught on fire and
someone put it out with a rake. Only that glimmer in his eye let me know it was him.Now I'm struggling with my own addiction to alcohol. Don't want alcohol - can't stay away from it. I've got it
under control, but I still slip. I slip - but I haven't fallen yet. AA didn't work for me because our local
chapter was really guilt and shame based. Hello? Adult Child of an Alcoholic! I went to therepy for too many
years to get rid of the guilt and shame. What has worked for me has been Rational Recovery. It teaches the
BEAST principle and how to recognize and (hopefully) stop alcoholic episodes. I'm at the age now when my
brother started downhill. It scares me to death to think that I might wind up like him. I don't want anyone
to look at an ID card and wonder who this filthy stranger is.Sobriety for me is like learning to walk. The slips only make me more determined to get back on my feet. You're
going to make it, Lisa. I am too.
Mark
> To those struggling with a drinking problem,
> I wish you all the best in what may become a lifelong battle. I have seen how very hard it is to stop.
>
> Dying from cirrhosis can be a slow process. You might develop a red nose. You might not. My mother didn't, but her skin and the whites of her eyes turned yellow. She used to tell me that the drops she took for glaucoma made her eyes yellow. She didn't think I knew she was drinking or how much, but that is one of the insidious things about addiction: it blinds people to what's happening around them. They think they can hide it. Family members wonder and worry for awhile. Eventually they learn all of the signs. Then they become silent watchdogs, listening to every inflection in the voice on the phone, listening for slurred words, watching a misstep down the hall, looking for hidden bottles, smelling the dirty glasses in the sink, smelling breath after a kiss goodnight, a hug goodbye or whenever they can get close enough. Family members know more than you think. You are fooling yourself if you don't think they know.
>
> Maybe a change in liver enzymes is enough of a scare for some. It was not for my mother. She used to boast that the liver could regenerate itself, and it can to a point.
>
> My mother had a drinking problem when I was quite young. She was hospitalized with cirrhosis in 1973 when I was in 6th grade. When I was in high school and college, she would become incoherent almost every night. She didn't hide it. After her father died in 1987, my mother drank continually, but she was hiding it. I was living in another state and didn't see the signs. She started feeling like she had the flu. The veins in her stomach and her esophagus enlarged and she began to bleed internally. She started to vomit blood uncontrollably and had bloody diarrhea. I cannot really describe what a bathroom can look like after something like this happens. Blood is splattered high on the walls, all over and around the toilet, all over the floor. It looks like a murder scene. You cannot imagine.
>
> The protein from blood in the stomach will overload a damaged liver and shut it down. Bilirubin and ammonia levels rise to toxic levels because the liver cannot eliminate them. Blood loss leads to a drop in blood pressure. My mother went into cardiac arrest in the emergency room. They broke her front teeth out when they put the breathing tube down her throat. She was in a coma for three days. She could not breathe well on her own, so I had to authorize a tracheotomy, which she endured for three weeks. I will never forget the fear in her eyes as she looked at me while they wheeled her to the OR. She developed pneumonia in both her lungs and an infection that damages heart valves.
>
> When the liver stops working, it becomes a waiting game. Doctors cannot tell you whether it will start working again. There is no magic test. You have to sit and wait and wait as they check the toxin levels in the blood over and over until some change is detected. It can take days before a verdict is reached. If the liver does not recover, the toxins build up in your system and your skin turns an unnatural ochre green. You fall into a coma. Your breathing becomes labored. You die. I learned that from a column someone wrote for the Washington Post about watching their own mother die of liver failure from alcohol abuse. Doctors wouldn't tell me when I asked them what would happen.
>
> My mom was in coronary intensive care for three weeks and another week in a regular hospital room, but she survived. Insurance only paid a small part, and my mother was left with a $37,000 hospital bill in 1988. None of this deterred her from continuing to drink. She was in and out of rehab over the next 10 years. She never was able to stick with AA because it made her feel guilty and bad. She tried very hard. I'll never know how much she really struggled with her addiction. She told me once that the longest she was ever able to stay completely sober was one 9-month period.
>
> She was arrested once for DWI. I had her arrested once for endangering herself: her blood-alcohol level was .33 and it took 18 hours for her to sober up in the hospital. She agreed to rehab again, but didn't work. She was angry with me for a long time after that.
>
> Eventually her liver function became bad enough that not alcohol, but a bleeding ulcer shut her liver down. More vomiting of blood, another coma, another waiting game. When she toppled, drunk, over a chair in her house and suffered a compound fracture in her ankle in 1995, the doctors could only use pins or screws. They wanted to put in a plate, but said that it would have been too dangerous with her reduced liver function. When she developed cancer and lost a breast a couple of years later, it was riskier surgery and breast reconstruction was not an option. She qualified for a liver transplant, but would not consider it. I think she knew that she would not take good care of a new liver.
>
> In the last few years of her life, she was hospitalized about every six months. Even a simple mineral deficiency would put her in the hospital, incoherent from the elevated level of ammonia in her system.
>
> Because her liver could not clear her medications at a regular pace, the antidepressants she'd started taking in 1998 built up in her system and she complained about being woosy and unsteady on her feet. I had just started taking ADs and didn't know a lot about them. I suggested that she ask to switch to a different one or to a lower dose. Her doctor was not paying attention. I think he had given up. Not long after, she fell and hit her head on a curb downtown. A few days later she was dead. All I know from the man painting her house and the neighbors' accounts was that she wasn't feeling well that day and had decided to lie down on the couch for a time. At one point she called her doctor's office. I know this because there was a message on her answering machine saying that an ambulance was on its way. She went into cardiac arrest in the ambulancce and died in the emergency room. She was 62. Her doctor and I decided not to bother with an autopsy. Whether it was a blood clot from her previous fall or something else, it didn't really matter. All of it was due to so many years of drinking.
>
> I don't bring this up to garner any sympathy. I've had my fill over the last two years. I've pretty much dealt with my mother's death. I've detailed her life here with the hope that her story might help someone who still has a chance to get help and stop drinking before it's too late. Ultimately, you should do this for yourself. If you cannot stop for yourself, please try to see what you are (or could be) putting your family through.
>
> Again, good luck and all best wishes.
>
> allison
>
>
>
poster:mark
thread:42413
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000811/msgs/43133.html