Do you know an alcoholic? What has happened to them?

One of my best friends is an alcoholic. He stopped drinking when he was hit by a car walking home from the pub. He realised the gravity of the situation when he woke up in hospital with no memory of even leaving the pub let alone being hit by a car. He is in his 50s now and has been sober for 20 years. He was also recently diagnosed with ASD and thinks that he used alcohol as a way to emotionally regulate and then became dependent unfortunately. He is doing well but has some ongoing health issues including horrendously bad teeth and he is very overweight as he snacks on sweet stuff all the time, which is probably a replacement for the alcohol. At least he can function better than when he was drinking though so that is a positive.

My brother is a vetran and had complex PTSD, he turned to drink. We lost him Sunday 12th October 💔 forever 41

I am 23 years sober and in 12 step recovery. My ex is not. He thank f lives in another country. I was fortunate to get off the merry go round early.

To be honest the future isn't good for him. A person has to want to get well for themselves.

I've been around recovery so long and I've seen a lot. I've seen people drink themselves into the grave denying they are alcoholic.

Alcoholism is a complex medical disability. A few lines here cannot sum it up.

My advice to you is click this box below and get to Al-Anon. It is for the families of those who have someone in their lives whose drinking is causing problems (alive or dead, estranged, divorced, parents, family, child, in partner etc) It doesn't matter if the person is sober or not to go. It is a family illness as it affects everyone around the drinker

Please read this. I have dual membership to Al Anon as well as AA as the ex is alcoholic. I know how how useful the Al Anon program is too. There are also online meetings too if you can't get out to meetings. Good luck

https://al-anonuk.org.uk/

A family member of mine. She's now 64, has no contact with her 3 kids (who are all now parents themselves, so obviously she's never met her grandchildren or even knows anything about them), lost all her teeth, hasn't worked for over 30 years and now has a partner who is on the verge of alcoholism himself.

Yeah my dad. He died of alcoholic liver disease.

My lovely Dad. He’s dead now ( not really caused by alcohol.) He had a very good job a d earned alot of money but had lost everything except his grown up kids by the time he died sadly My grandmother dead of cancer six weeks after diagnosis at 83

My husband is an alcoholic. He went into rehab 6 years ago after I’d had enough and threw him out (to cut a long story short). He found losing me, our life together etc to be his personal rock bottom. It doesn’t always have to be living on the streets! He arranged the rehab himself, not expecting (but hoping I think) it to lead to us reconciling. Aside from a brief lapse 3 years ago, he hasn’t drunk since and life has been great.

My dad - he died when he was 47 from liver failure, my youngest sibling was 10.

My husband's dad - divorced, became a hoarder and a hermit and now has Korsakoff's and is in a care home.

I've known many over the years and most of them are dead now: heart failure and liver damage.

However I do know a handful who have become and remain sober. A former colleague really hit rock bottom - lost his job, had a breakdown, but got into rehab and rebuilt his life. He's doing great now.

I have a positive story

Ex H is an alcoholic, went to a month long residential rehab, as far as I know he’s been sober for 7 years now (we split after 2) but I know ex MIL would tell me if he was drinking again to protect DC. He was in a very lucky situation as he had the money to pay for the private rehab. Does your partner have health insurance via work, as I know a lot of them actually cover rehab too (which I was quite surprised to learn at the time!)

We don’t get on now, but one thing I will say for him, is he worked bloody hard to get sober and stay sober and is very committed to AA.

would recommend Al Anon groups for support for you, I found them very helpful.

lots of love. It’s such a hard situation to be in ❤️

edit to say; it took him hitting absolute rock bottom to realise he had a problem and needed help. Lost his job, driving licence and ended up with a criminal conviction. I asked him to sort it millions of times and it never worked; it has to come from them.
Maybe you leaving would be that reality check for him, but obviously it’s not guaranteed that it will.

Was there for them through their first 2 or 3 attempts at rehab but eventually you have nothing left to give. They are still alive but in very poor health and family and friends are either no or low contact. Their life is very limited and depressing. I hear they are still having times when they claim to be sober and lie about it, they just drink less because of the medication.

Also know a couple of people who are very alcohol dependent but still functioning. You cant stop people drinking, only decide if you want to be around them.

Honestly all you can do is leave and hope that makes them chose to abstain.

My Dad, who died from it aged 52, and also me, sober nearly 7 years thanks to AA. I'm so sorry that you are going through such a horrible time. All I can say is prioritise yourself, and your child. X

I know several. My dad..still alive and drinking aged 73. Bad tremor and memory playing up. Has had a few heart-related scares. Dads brothers, both dead before reaching their 50s. A best friends exh. Had a stroke in his 40s. Now unable to run his business and work. Ex bil. Died by suicide aged 41. All have had wives/children and caused a lot of suffering to them along the way. Good luck with your plans to leave ❤️ Don't delay it any longer than necessary.

I don't think there is one size fits all. Which you can tell from the responses.

Average lifespan maybe is about 60.

But there are alcoholics and alcoholics. Someone drinking a bottle of wine a day might be described as an alcoholic, but the amount of alcohol they are consuming is a lot less than someone on a bottle of gin a day, and the damage that is done to them physically is a lot different.

Plus genes have a significant effect. Some people are better at processing the stuff than others and do less damage to themselves for the same quantity.

People are far more likely to remember and tell stories about Jim the guy who drank himself to death age 40 and died in a unusual fashion rather than Bill the functioning alcoholic who popped off the mortal coil aged 80.

That said, it clearly isn't a recipe for a longer lifespan - but that is true of a lot of lifestyles - eg being very overweight or smoking a lot of weed.

An old work colleague of mine.

She started drinking heavily in her mid-20s, and is late 30s now. She's just about holding down a minimum wage job, but finds it very hard.

I met up with her for a lunch over the summer, and she looked pretty unwell. Very bloated, and much more unkempt than she was even 18 months ago when I last saw her.
She's had a whole host of pretty serious health conditions, including a deep vein thrombosis that almost killed her fairly recently.

She still lives at home with her mum (who it seems is at a similar level of alcoholic), and has never had any sort of relationship beyond fairly surface level friendships.

Friend 13 years sober and doing great. Attends AA weekly and really became part of the meetings and credits that with his success.

From my circle of friends, two dead before 40, plus one with both legs amputated due to poor lifestyle choices

My exH. He took his own life due to a mixture of alcoholism and rubbish mental health. Left 2 kids aged 4 and 3, he was 34. I left before the end and I’m so thankful I did. The kids are more stable, I don’t have to tiptoe around everything and not every outing is a quest to find alcohol.

It’s a horrible illness and they have to want to get sober before anything will be done.

Just one, my old boss from 20 years ago. Such an amazing, kind man but the booze destroyed everything, his relationship with his partner, his relationships with his kids, lost his job, home. He was found in a caravan in a caravan park, after being homeless for a while. It was a few months after he died before he was found where nobody checked on him and that made me cry when heard about it. Booze is the demon, and am so sorry that you're going through this and I so hope your partner can turn things around, I really do. Hugs.

My mother. She has periods of sobriety (up to 4 years). I have very strong boundaries and limit my contact with her

My friend - actually she was a heroin addiction so her bottle of wine and 4 beers a day is good going. I keep boundaries around her too (but hey maybe I should cut her off, it's just so normal y'know).

I seem to meet loads of them, they are drawn to me. My key rules are never support, never rescue, never buy booze, and honestly never confront, absolutely no point.

I would never be in a relationship with one and would get the he'll out if I were you.

Be brave and do the right thing OP. I am the child of an alcoholic who lived to a fine old age, so it's sometimes a lifelong burden for the spouse and children to carry. In fact he outlived my non-drinking mother by 20 years - you just never know how strong a person's constitution is. The implications for the next generation of seeing that every single day are profound.

My dad is an alcoholic. He is a nasty drunk, and was verbally and at times physically abusive when I was growing up. He has significant MH problems and abuse in his own childhood. My mum is still with him, they're in their 70s and she will never leave him now. He's never been physically violent to her, but a lot of verbal agression.

He has been 'sober' for about 8 years, in that he no longer drinks but smokes a lot of cannabis. In a way this is an improvement, but it's impossible to have an actual conversation with him. His mental and physical health are not good.

It's definitely affected me and my siblings. You are doing a brave thing in leaving and in my opinion the right thing to protect your children. I wish you all the best

My SIL, completely enabled by my brother. She doesn't leave the house and has shrinkage of the cerebellum caused by chronic alcoholism.

She was a slim, beautiful, houseproud and outgoing woman, now reduced to living in a house that looks like a squat, with severely matted hair (she used to have it cut and coloured 6 weekly) and eating whatever crap my drug addict brother feeds her. The pair of them are beyond help now- it is so sad.

One in my family, she is trying and mostly succeeding to stay sober. She's probably been an alcoholic for 25 years, admitted it properly about 15 years ago and has been mostly sober for the last 10 years. But my god it's still a daily struggle - even with all the support in place. I don't think it will ever leave her.

My Dad. He died alone, miserable, angry and not a single person mourned him. He didn't even get a funeral.