Alcohol fuckin sucks(CW: substance abuse)
Alcohol fuckin sucks(CW: substance abuse)
Got back from family vacation, got on the dreaded Facebook, found out the woman who was my first gf 12 years ago, and subsequently a friend I talked to pretty frequently, had died of liver failure at 33 years old.
Looking back on it, when she was drinking 12 years ago it just seemed like a fun time. I didn't know she sustained that pace for a decade plus. Some other things took a toll too, like an eating disorder.
Anyways, I am fuckin sad, fuck alcohol, it's as bad as heroin but capitalism gotta make that $$$$$
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my dad's been an alcoholic most of his life. he's in his early 60s but walks worse than his parents did when they were in their 80s and has a good deal of health problems :/
he was forced to go to rehab a year ago and has been sober ever since. i'm proud for him but wish it could've happened in my childhood instead of right after i go to college. we have a better relationship now at least, spending more time with him now than i did in late high school
there's defo still some permanent mental effects but it seems like going sober's even made his temper a lot better, he's even kinda sharper and a lot less reactionary
Very similar except mine never actually quit.
CW venting and gross medical stuff
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I'm convinced he has Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome and he's had cognitive evaluation that placed him as like, pre-dementia but he lies his ass off about the severity of his drinking to doctors and has gotten even more stubborn and shitty as his faculties have declined and doesn't want to try anything or get better.
Super heavy alcoholics reach a point where they have severe enough digestive issues that they're getting little to no nutrition from what they eat at the same time that they're drinking a full caloric daily value of booze, so they never have an appetite at the same time their body is malfunctioning and eating its own fat/muscle/bone trying to get a bare minimum of vitamins and minerals necessary to function. When the liver gets overwhelmed, the skin tries to compensate and shed toxins getting greasy and sweaty, then the skin can't keep up and starts getting psoriatic sheds and cracks that bleed and scab.
It's fucking horrifying to see and something I'd beg anyone struggling with alcohol to do everything in their power to avoid. I can't speak for everyone, but from what I've seen, there's a point of severe alcoholism that once someone passes, they lose the ability to get themselves out of it and would need a medically supervised gradual detox and rehab.
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the skin tries to compensate and shed toxins getting greasy and sweaty, then the skin can't keep up and starts getting psoriatic sheds and cracks that bleed and scab
oh wow my dad has severe psoriasis. he started taking meds that stopped it a couple years ago, but before that there were often skin flakes everywhere when i went to his house on weekends. never considered alcohol was the likely cause
his vision is terrible so he rarely drives at night anymore. has tinnitus and bad hearing. processing time and short-term memory is pretty bad but definintely improved since quitting (big part of that could just be his ADHD). he had bad muscle spams after climbing into the attic a couple weeks ago but thankfully has govt insurance and goes to doctors regularly. he goes for walks at night and takes meds, and his gait's improved in the past months. my main concern's his appetite is still very small and he regularly skips meals. but for the most part he's really working on himself
all hope to your dad, it's a disease i thought would be impossible for mine to break out of and i'm still genuinely surprised rehab did it. it took him i think 3 DUIs (at least in my lifetime, his ass got banned from canada 30 years ago lmao) and the ignition breathalyzer thing to quit. couldn't even stop when he got in trouble drunk driving my brother and i when we were young kids, not sure why he wasn't forced to detox earlier. being retired probably gave him the motivation to stick with it, he now goes to regular meetings and replaces beer with sugary ice tea
personally i force myself to only drink socially, and i'm often scared of drinking at all (usually have more than i planned). seeing how he ended up i think i have the self-control for at least that. weed dependency's a bigger concern for me right now, i think i also likely inherited ADHD (and people with it have insanely high rates of drug/alc abuse), so getting tested for it soon and maybe treatment could help my impulse control
his vision is terrible so he rarely drives at night anymore. has tinnitus and bad hearing. processing time and short-term memory is pretty bad but definintely improved since quitting (big part of that could just be his ADHD).
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Yeah, that all tracks. One of the things besides his skin problems and worsening temperament than stood out as really concerning was the visual recognition stuff. He'd always worn glasses and sometimes wouldn't wear them around the house and then have a hard time reading something from some distance, but at some point that turned into him opening the fridge/looking in the pantry/looking for kitchen implements in drawers and looking for something specific, not remembering where it is, also not being able to visually differentiate anything, and then almost immediately flipping into a rage, yelling expletives and blaming other people for shit he misplaced and couldn't remember, or blaming inanimate objects for conspiring against him. He's lived in the same house for like 25 years, and one time forgot where the light switch in the laundry room was, then acted like other people conspired to hide it somewhere while looking for it in the cabinets for some reason.