How long before her health fails due to her alcoholism?

[Argumentsake]

I have a friend who is deep in the depths of alcoholism. I don’t know how long she has been drinking to this degree. At a guess I would say at least 2 years, but perhaps more. But certainly since the beginning of this year I know she has been:

• drinking till she blacks out very frequently. She has fallen whilst drunk countless times and injured herself. She frequently has bruises that she doesn’t remember how she got them.
• She has a big red bloated face but is stick thin everywhere else. I think she’s lost about 2 stone in weight.
• She vomits every single day until the time that she has her first drink.
• She has severe loss of appetite and is undoubtedly malnourished.
• She has the shakes really bad in her hands but also her face seems to almost constantly quiver.
• She may well be using cocaine too.

She is 100% physically addicted. She has had 2 separate rehab stints, one in January and one in April of this year. She didn’t take them seriously or see either of them through to fruition.

She has lost almost everything. Her marriage has failed. She was reported to SS at the beginning of the year and they assessed and she has now lost access/custody of her children. Yet I still don’t think she has hit her rock bottom yet. But I think she looks very close to her body failing. Is there any way of knowing bar her having ultrasounds as to the state of her organs?

How old is she?

She needs AA. She needs to try it and see how people (who were once very much like her) get better and stay well.

She does have to want to get better though. That’s the key. AA will absolutely work for her if she works it!!!
I’m speaking from very personal experience, 1 year and 5 days sober.

Late forties.

Very hard to say but with her level of alcohol consumption she is already risking serious organ damage and potentially some degree of Wernicke encephalopathy. If she is also dabbling with drugs then yes her health is at immediate and serious risk.

She’s not interested in AA and she is still very much in denial.

Very sad situation. Alcoholism is a horrible disease not just for the person who is physically dependent on it but for the people around them who are watching the person they love be consumed by the disease and its consequences. If your friend refuses to even admit there is an issue then that makes it harder to confront and to try to help her.

I’m so sorry for you all. Where there’s life there’s hope and I hope she can reach a point of desperation where she will accept and want help. It happens for many people and often when they’ve gone as low as they can go.
Sending love xxx

She did admit that she had a problem back at the beginning of the year, hence the attempts at rehab. But she didn’t see them through (and behaved very badly whilst she was there) and now she is claiming that everything is fine when it is quite clear that things are exactly the same.

She is still very much blaming others for the things that are happening rather than looking at herself. I actually think that it has gone beyond alcoholism and into being severely mentally ill. Just don’t know if the mental illness is a symptom of the alcoholism or the alcoholism is a symptom of the mental illness, if that makes sense? But obviously impossible to do anything whilst she’s still drinking and I am very worried about her physical health all the while.

Just 2 years of heavy drinking is unlikely to cause organ failure, I think I read it normally takes at least 10 years. But obviously it will be a lot quicker if she has no nutrition as the body can't heal properly

I became ‘mad’ as in mentally ill at the end of my drinking, and I’m fine now. I can only speak for myself though. I was desperate to not be the person I had become (24 hr drinking, topping up etc) but I didn’t know how to make it stop. I was scared to carry on drinking and scared at the thought of not carrying on drinking. I was scared to live and scared of dying. I wanted someone to ‘rescue’ me and guide me.
I can only speak of my own experiences though, I’d had enough in the end. I was even drinking against my will. It was my medicine.
She has to get that ‘no more, enough is enough’ place on her own xx

@CEB1979 wow, well done for coming out the other side and thank you for sharing what must have been a very traumatic time for you.

Yes, she absolutely has to want to want it. But I just can’t see what it will take to get her there. I thought her not being able to live with her children would be her lightbulb moment but sadly not.

She may get a moment of clarity, but she may not. She sounds in a bad way. Some die in their 30s and others stagger on until their 50s or later.

I'm another aa success story - 26 years and counting. I never believed life could be so good.

Thank you @Argumentsake, means a lot! Yes, it breaks my heart to think that there are some out there who haven’t had the moment of clarity. I feel extremely lucky because it really is a killer of a disease. It still may come, I hear lots of death bed stories from people (yellow, liver failing, bleeding) and they can come back and go on to live a full and happy life!

Try not to fuss her also. I only got better when my family ‘let me be’ and I was left to my own devices. Fuss, help, financial help, rehab, rewards for a week off the booze etc DID NOT do me any good.
They kind of ‘gave up’ and that was when I thought ‘s+#t, I need to sort this out’. Me, not anyone else!!!!
It must have been so hard for them but it really did work.

@CEB1979 we are pretty much at that point now. I think most people have had enough for the time being. It’s incredibly frustrating and draining to watch someone continuously choose the booze over everything else. Unfortunately I fear that the damage done to her relationship with her children is irreparable. But she really has to get there on herself. The last two rehab stints, she has spun it in her mind that she was forced to go by husband (separated), friends and family despite her actually booking the last one herself. We are still very much at the finger pointing stage with her not accepting any responsibility for herself.

She has also just embarked on a new relationship that she seems to be investing her time in rather than focusing on her children and getting better.

Does she work? How can she afford it? She sounds like she needs to go away somewhere and get dry! To lose your kids and nor blame yourself is shocking!!

Have you considered writing her a letter OP? Verbal communication with an alcoholic can be incredibly hard - gauging ‘the right’ moment etc....often they can’t even remember heartfelt pleas as a kind of mental wall can come down.

But a letter has time for a drip feed to percolate. If she’s lodged in denial, she may just chuck it in the bin. But what do you have to loose? You could tell her that you love and care for her but you can see this disease is robbing her of some of the most important things in life....her health, the love & respect of her kids. If she acts, there may be hope to pick up the pieces or some of the pieces of her relationships with her kids and regain their trust. Offer to go to an AA Open meeting with her....look up a date and venue (many are online now) but say you want no contact until she’s ready to take that step as you feel everything else hasn’t worked due to her denial.....which is a symptom of this addiction. Offer to go to NHS alcohol services with her for a medicated detox program. If she’s serious, she will take these steps. If she’s not serious or ready then you have to distance yourself and tell her that’s what you intend.
This is really hard OP, you sound like a lovely mate by the way. 💐

Good advice from @Serengetiqueen. Back off and leave her to figure this out for herself. As hard as that might be for you you may actually be doing the best thing that’s ever happened to her.
Ps: I couldn’t stop for my kids either. I’d decided that too much damage had been done and I couldn’t face my own past. That’s what keeps an alcoholic drinking more than anything: fear, guilt, remorse and resentments. It’s too much for your friend to face which is why the one day at a time ethos of AA is so essential.
Sending love 💓

AA also take the Ethos, that wherever an alcoholic is at, it is never too late. There will always be others at AA who sadly will have lost more than she has.

Would she go and see her g.p. she sounds pretty unwell and a blood test would give some indication of her overall health. Alcoholism is such a dreadful disease. I do hope that she can find the inner strength to seem help.

i’m 6.5 years sober. AA saved my life in the end, but i had to be the one to choose to live.

you can’t save an alcoholic. they can only save themselves. and sadly, not everyone makes it. in the last week there have been 2 deaths of people i know from the rooms.

i too lost everything. my job, marriage, kid, husband. i nearly died.

you say you think she is now ‘past’ alcoholism and into being severely mentally ill. these are two separate things. i am an alcoholic and also live with severe mental illness. now i am sober, but i still have very poor mental health. it’s just easier to manage now.

the cruelty of alcoholism is that it affects everyone around the alcoholic. i couldn’t stop drinking for my child, even though i love her desperately and would never want to hurt her. my drinking became completely out of control and inevitably she was hurt.

i went into AA after a failed attempt to end my life. my child went no-contact with me and it was more than i could bear. i was in a very abusive marriage and had no support at all. i spent a week on a psych ward and went to my first meeting the night i was discharged.

it’s not a miracle cure. it took me a further 7 months of sobriety and relapse, ending in a 3 day binge and subsequent withdrawal that nearly killed me. something clicked. i got a sponsor, worked the 12 steps and i haven’t had a drink since.

i wish your friend all the very best, OP. i fear this may be time for you to detach yourself emotionally from her likely outcomes. you cannot save her. rehab is pointless if she isn’t committed to it. if she wants to drink herself to death, she will.

i had my first drink at 8. i was born an alcoholic. by 12 i was drinking to blackout on a regular basis. i finally stopped age 41 (i didn’t drink at all when pregnant and found it easy not to, but started again when my child was born). anyone can change, but they have to find it within themselves,

go well, OP. take care of yourself and your mental health. there is nothing else that you can do. it sounds harsh, but it’s the truth. i’m so sorry you’re in this situation.