To ask if someone could someone live long with this level of drinking?

[mrlistersgelfbride]

Not very night, occasionally not even every week. But when they start they can't stop.

Maybe every Friday and/or Sunday, 20 to 30 units each. Football home matches twice a month, full days drinking say 30 units. Sometimes more, enough to be sick.

Boys trip, maybe 3 times a year, 100 units total.
Holidays, 4 or 5 days out of 7 , 20 to 30 units a day.

If someone drank like this could they live a long life without major health problems?

Honestly op. Him dying early would be the least of your worries.
Spending the rest of your life with a disgusting slob who is either drunk or hungover and not parenting would be a bigger worry for me.

No not at all. 12 pints twice a week every week yes it sounds shit. 8-12 pints maybe what 4 times a month, and then the 2 match days. Don't know, to me that doesn't sound horrific. Depends how often it is.

Ok, surprised. To me that's a lot of units full stop, but also consumed in a frequent binge drinking pattern which is the most damaging way, so to me it sounds pretty bad.

I know someone who got heart failure through binge drinking. He wasn’t obese and that does need to be factored in as it will affect his heart and other organs. I couldn’t stand living with someone who did this. Do you want to leave?

@WiIIow It's the behaviour more really.

It sounds ridiculous writing this but he listens to music on his headphones and sings loudly, often until 3 or 4am. He falls over and shouts me.
Sometimes he orders takeaway food and it ends up all over the floor or someone's at the door and partner can't string a sentence together.

I would be more inclined towards a stroke or other CV event. Is he insured?

After your update he sounds awful.

No way for me, heavy drinking is really unattractive, I couldn't be with someone with such little regard for health

That is absolutely repulsive behaviour and a terrible example for your child.

Op, you should refuse to live this way. You should want better for yourself and your daughter.

Al-Anon have a helpline which might be an additional source of support for you:

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

That’s what killed one of my friends in his early 40s. He’d been an alcoholic for many years and eventually sustained damage to several of his major organs. He didn’t die from liver disease, but because the alcohol had caused his heart to become enlarged.

I’ve got alcoholics in my family that just keep going on all their pickled glory. Meanwhile, the people around them who maybe drank even average or slightly above average amounts in an effort to cope end up suffering horrible alcohol related illnesses and dying relatively young. How our bodies respond to alcohol is random.

a tiny irrational voice inside of me says that the more evil the alcoholic, the less likely the alcohol will make them physically ill. I know it’s not a fair sentiment, but I can’t help that it feels very true.

He might but he might not live long.

my grandfather drunk like a fish his whole life and lived to 92

on the other hand I’ve heard of heavy drinkers dying of liver failure within less than 10 years.

You can do all sorts of things that are known to have negative impacts on health and be fine and you can do nothing that is risky and die young. But the real situation is that risky behaviour increases your risk of ill health. Doesn't guarantee it, but increases the probability you will be sick of die younger.
In my experience alcohol issues kick in your 50s to 60s. Seems years away when you are drinking at 30 but when it kills you at 62 it seems young to be dead.

Can you get the GP to do a well man check?

This is crap now and all it can lead to is more of this or him getting seriously ill and not being able to function. Neither is good for you. It doesn't really matter if he is going to die at 62, it's rubbish for you now, so time to make changes.

How you've put up with it as long as you have is the real question.

That's repulsive behaviour. And leaving your DD to you all the time isn't on. He's not a family man, I'd be moving on pronto while you can.

Impossible to predict, however, if someone is regularly going above the recommend 14 units weekly then that’s not great. It’s true that your partner may not drink one week, then binge the next week with 30 units. It doesn’t balance it out as the liver can only process so much in a given space of time.

You can end the marriage if you're not happy. It sounds as if he prioritises drinking at weekends and uses social occasions as excuses to get plastered. Is completely un-social on holidays too.

He's already happy to risk the relationship with you in order to drink, and to ignore the relationship he could be having with his child in order to prioritize drinking. So the social effects have already kicked in but he's ploughing ahead regardless.

Physical effects of alcohol can include diabetes and heart disease, and an elevated risk of stroke, as well as the risks of being overweight as a result of drinking so many calories and oresumably being too incapacitated to get any exercise on weekends (while working during the week).

That's just for starters, without liver damage and the various cancers related to drinking, or dementia. Or dying in a car crash.

I've always been a binge drinker, but at one time in my life (late 20s and early 30s), I was a full blown alcoholic. Unhappy marriage, bitter divorce etc. I was a 'functional alcoholic and I was able to stop the daily drinking, but I remained a binge drinker.

Due to some awful life experiences in the past couple of years (family death, lost job, split with partner of 10 yrs etc.), I started binging a lot more frequently. I ignored some of the warning signs my body was giving me because too many other things were happening to have time to focus on myself. Until I couldn't ignore it any longer. I sought medical help when my symptoms were too bad to live a normal life.

I've been tested, scanned, ultrasounded and x-rayed to death over the past 8 months. Along with masses of hard to tolerate medication. What it all came down to was that my liver was on the verge of turning cirrhotic. And once that happens, there's no going back.

I stopped drinking immediately. Haven't had a drink since March. My specialist told me that everything I've done to myself is reversible because it's been caught 'just in time'. I just need to follow "The Rules" around healthy living. But he gave me a very clear warning: if I continue as I have been, I will either need a liver transplant or have liver cancer within five years. And you don't come back from that (his words).

Aside from my drinking, my lifestyle was pretty good - diet is fine, moderate exercise etc. And I was by no means a daily drinker. I could go months without it, but when I drank, I had no 'stop button'. I can drink everyone I know under the table. And that was the problem.

I'm only 53. What I've gone through this year with my health, I wouldn't wish on anyone. Please, tell your partner that his drinking WILL come back and bite him at some point. He won't know to what degree until it happens. He could be lucky like me and have the opportunity to correct it and have a second chance at life. Or, he could get a liver cancer diagnosis and only 10% survive that long term. 4% service less than 5 years.

I've learned that what we do to our bodies when we're younger will always have consequences when we're older. Best of luck to you and your partner, OP.

@SmokeyToo thanks for the post. That's exactly my experience. It catches up with the majority at an age we find shockly young when we are there, but pretty old when we are 28 and passing it up. Some are genetically lucky but most are not. Hope you are good this morning.

I’d be giving him an ultimatum, the impact on you and your child/children is irreversible.

(This is coming from someone who has had struggles with alcohol for years).

@ClareBlue I'm great this morning, thanks. As boring as not drinking is, not being hungover all the time is pretty awesome!

You're right in that it's 'the luck of the draw'. A few will come through youthful behaviour unscathed, but most of us aren't that lucky. Mind you, I don't think I'd change much about my life if I had the chance to do it over. I just have to live with the consequences! I guess that was the point of my post, really. Also that I'm single with no kids so I don't have to worry about people relying on me, but the OP has a daughter to consider. The child shouldn't be around idiot drunks.

Hope you're also having a lovely day. 😊

It’s really hard to say how his health will fare. My FIL has drunk like this for over thirty years and is still in relatively good health in his mid fifties. He has depression but it’s hard to know whether alcohol is a coping mechanism or a cause. He holds a very senior public service role and has worked his way up there in this time. Just because the damage isn’t yet obvious though doesn’t mean it isn’t there. People in the 55-65 group often start developing dementia, cancer etc and these are often linked to alcohol misuse.

The one certainty with regards to your other half is that he won’t change unless he makes the choice to do so himself. You cannot ‘fix’ him or make him realise he needs to change. It is an addiction. The only thing you can control is how you respond to his addiction.

He's an alcoholic and won't change.

You are not. He won't drop conveniently dead and even if he did there would be years of health issues first.

You owe it to yourself and your daughter to get the hell out of there.