Member Comments are provided by individuals and reflect their personal opinions only. Under NO circumstances should you act on any advice or opinion posted in this forum. ALWAYS check with your personal physician before taking any action regarding your health! MedHelp International and our partners, sponsors and affiliates have no obligation to monitor any comments posted on this site, or the content and/or accuracy of such exchanges. MedHelp International does not endorse the views of any user.
Addiction: Substance Abuse Community
This community is a place to share information and support with others who are trying to stop using drugs, prescription drugs, alcohol, tobacco or other addictive substances. Discuss with others, the symptoms of addiction, addiction recovery, ways to quit like tapering and cold turkey, and withdrawal symptoms. If you are interested in general "chat", please visit our Addiction Social Community.
Is damage from alcohol reversable.
by Alan Jukes, Aug 08, 2000 12:00AM
I need some advice. I am 27 years old and have been drinking steadily since i was fifteen. My father died five years ago and he was a fairly heavy drinker. Recently i have been finding it increasingly difficult to not drink of an evening. Most evenings i will drink about six cans of beer sometimes eight. I have worked out that for the last six years or more i have been consuming nearly 80 units of alcohol per week. i am six foot four and weigh sixteen and a half stone. I work out three or four times a week at the gym for an hour or more at a time and my body is in good shape and i am quite fit. My drinking has never interfered with my work and nobody suspects that i drink this much. I dont seem to have any side effects and i dont ever get ill from drinking. I eat healthily and other than the drinking i look after myself quite well.Obviously i realise that drinking this much is going to seriously damage my longterm health but because i dont feel any symptoms i dont worry too much about the consequences. Please tell me what sort of damage i may have already done and how bad it could get and how soon. i have never spoken to anyone about how much i drink and i think if i knew fully how much damage it is doing i may be more inclined to modereate it. thank you for your time.
The only way to tell if the alcohol is damaging your body now is to get a complete physical including a liver test. Tell your doctor how much and how often you drink. TELL HIM YOU BELIEVE YOU ARE AN ALCOHOLIC AND WOULD LIKE TO STOP! I told several doctors many years ago I thought I drank too much when I was only on a six pack of beer a day. They all ignored it.
Finally, by the time I was steadily drinking around the clock one or more large bottles of vodka a day and almost losing my job because of a schedule change which forced me to drink before I went to work to avoid serious withdrawal symptoms, I admitted to my employer I was having a serious alcohoism problem and wanted to get it fixed. She suggested seeing a doctor right away.
I told the Doc I had a serious problem with alcoholism and wanted to stop drinking. When he heard the admition of alcoholism he took it seriously.
You seem to have an alcoholism problem if you need to drink every night. You should quit before it does bodily damage such as diabetis, spelling?, liver damage, heart damage and more. Most of these things are reversable in the early stages of alcoholism, but the longer you drink the more damage done the less chance of complete physical recovery. It definatey affects the mind as well. Your thinking will become more and more irrational until you stop.
This is just my opinion from my experiences. Alcoholics anonymous can really help you if you really want to stop. You may want to check them out as soon as possible.
One other tip, once you are addicted to alcohol which it sounds as if you are by your description of your drinking, you will not be able to control it or cut down except for short periods of time and then you will be right back to the heavy stuff. It is a viscious cycle. That is why A.A. calls alcohol cunning, baffling and completely controlling.
First you must admit to yourself that you are an alcoholic, that your drinking is out of control and that your life is becoming unmanagable. Then you can get the help you need. Good Luck!!!
The mear fact you wrote in this forum screams volumes to me. (an ex heavy drinker)
Stop now so you can have a life longer then your fathers.
Good Luck
I drank heavily while holding a full-time job and teaching scuba diving on the side. I was incredibly fit. Unfortunately, I couldn't stop the drinking. It got worse, I ended up adding drugs, and my cute little body got all bloated and ugly. I didn't really care much at the time, because I was caught in the drinking...
Now, lots of years and literally thousands of AA meetings later, I'm back to being quite fit, and so on. I don't HAVE to drink today... that's the difference.
Good luck to you. Lynn
I know what you are going through. Often times I hate my life too. Just remember though even if you helped one person, it makes you an important person. You helped at least one here today and probably many more whom have not commented but read your advice.
I hope you feel better today, And I wish you good luck.
I wish you the best of luck. I hope you get yourself into detox. They will help you get through the DT's. I know it sucks from first hand experience but once you are past the 10 day period it's mainly psychological withdrawal and protracted withdrawal which creates the craving. Try to stay at least 30 days at an in-patient prgram if you can and even if you can get a work pass.
Fell free to talk anytime. I am a good listener, especially since we have gone through the same typhoon so to speak!
I could write a short book about alcoholism. I am still not completely alcohol free, but working on it. A major problem with quitting drinking that I have is I have a mate that loves to drink beer on occasion. She does not drink nightly but abuses beer when she does drink. (Two or three times a week.) She literaly drinks until she passes out or I make her stop. She will not stop the beers b/c she says she doesn't drink every night. The problem with this thinking is that the times she doesn't drink she is without energy and has a hard time having a good time. She depends on beer to have a good time! I on the other hand drink one beer most nights and take a mild trank to help me sleep. An important thing that I read recently in my substance abuse class is that if a person drinks fifteen 12 oz. glasses of beer or 15 shots of 80 proof whiskey a WEEK!! This amount will give you cirrosis of the liver in a very short time. I can understand whiskey doing this but I was not aware that beer could do this damage.
Thanks for listening,
Frank D.
P.S. Will write to you again after I get out of the hospital.
Good luck with your detox. You made a good decision to get help.
Good luck with your detox. You made a good decision to get help.
It seems many of us out here have issues with Alcohol. I'm a stay at home mom. After my first son I had PPD. I started drinking. Then two yrs later got pregnant again. I didn't drink during either one of my pregnancies. I was a different person then, happy, confident, motivated. Now one year after my second child I'm back on the bottle. As soon as he was born I went back to it. It was crazy. It's become so bad that I drink all day. I have a very high tolerance and will drink up to a half bottle of vodka and a bottle of Chard. throughout the day. I do want help too. You guys are not alone. It's a dirty secret. It's so embarrassing to think that this has happened to me. I was in great shape, working out, living healthy. Now, I'm isolated and self distructive. Could this be post P Depression? I know I'm an alcoholic but could child birth trigger this?
The hardest part is that I want to go get my liver tested but I'm so frightened to confide in my doc. I'm so embarrassed and I live in fear everyday that my