Did anybody see the Panaroma about binge drinking last night?

[Orangelight23]

Real eye opener for me. Women in their 30s being diagnosed with liver disease. I must admit I have myself been drawn into wine culture and drinking wine to relax.

It's made me have a real think about my alcohol intake to be honest.

Also I really wanted to echo the thoughts about liver disease not being the only, or the worst impact.

also genuinely be cautious about taking these examples at face value and extrapolating them- as others have said it’s extremely likely that they are downplaying their consumption to get to these serious health impacts.

it wasn’t until I had the experience of line managing alcoholics I realised how tragically prevalent it is, and how very unlikely you’d be to know about it- even if it was your best friend, your sister, your mum. You really can’t dismiss the chance that these poles are just not being honest about how much they drink, and how little they do have in common with glass of wine in front the tv on a Friday woman

We are here for a good time, not a long time!

Shit like that is why I'm growing up without a mum and my daughter isn growing up having never met her gran.

It might be my life but its sure as he'll worth more to me and my family than a few crappy glasses of wine.

Do you honestly think any patient dying of a terminal illness thinks like that? Throwing up, not eating, shitting their pants because they can't make it to the toilet because they are too weak, crying to their family that they're scared...you think they think its worth it?

Why is it "pious" to state facts?

I agree that not drinking means nothing in isolation but that doesn't mean that people who choose that way of life for health reasons are preaching or being pious, or boring, or any other number of names that are tossed out on threads like this.

Same. Its completely improved my mental and physical health.

Alcohol is a carcinogen and a toxin.

Generally being able to drink daily or binge huge amounts regularly, but still being able to hold down good jobs could be a bit of a worry. It means that your liver has worked hard to metabolise the toxins and has acclimatised to the alcohol it is processing by activating enzymes. Over time however, this may lead to liver disease, fatty liver, cirrhosis etc.

So I guess both are as ‘bad’ as each other in different ways if you all have tolerance.

We are here for a good time, not a long time!

Ah yes, fatty liver or liver cirrhosis - such a great fun time!!

I guess one important message is that heavy drinkers should not stop drinking suddenly. It can be extremely dangerous and lead to withdrawal symptoms, seizures and even death. Fortunately, there are services available to help people now with community detoxes. Heavy drinkers should not stop drinking without professional support, esp if they have other health problems too.

Who came up with 14? Lets face it most of think in multiples of 5?

The thing is we haven't seen the effects of drinking on cancer/ dementia rates yet.
It can take many years for the effects to show .
It's a ticking time bomb particularly for women .
A few years ago I read,an article about how alcohol is marketed to women

Prosecco time
Gin o clock
Pillows, bags, coasters, cards with alcohol slogans, pink fizz
And then creams for bags, tiredness, dullness
Vitamins to pep you up
Goop was very guilty of this

I feel really lucky that I didn't do myself any damage. From my teens to my late thirties I regularly binge-drank, and I don't just mean technically, I mean really huge amounts in one sitting including blackouts.

How I don't miss the hangovers.

Both my paternal grandparents died of alcohol related illnesses.

My grandma had done so much damage to herself from smoking and drinking that she could barely speak. She was so dependent that she couldn't stop or it would kill her - she was too unwell to go through medical rehab so she just stayed home and drank. She didn't know who I was, didn't know what day it was or even where she was half the time.

My granddad, somehow, managed to remain functional into his nineties when he died of prostate cancer. He was (on the surface) intelligent, happily married and had a large family who loved him - but the reality was there was constantly whisky on his breath, he couldn't walk in a straight line and he regularly turned up to work drunk - though because he was so "tolerant" of it, it didn't show to anyone who didn't know him well.

I also had an acquaintance who drank herself into oblivion, who went through multiple detoxes and who regularly shit and pissed the bed because she couldn't get up in time. She would vomit down herself and keep drinking. She was constantly in and out of hospital and died of multiple organ failure in her fifties (while looking about 95). 10 years previously, she seemed perfectly normal - loved a night out, looked her age, was happy and social and held down a job. It happened scarily fast.

I think when you've seen your loved ones go through that, and have seen the impact it has on your other relatives, you can't bring yourself to have a casual attitude to alcohol.

Daughter of a high functioning alcoholic. As a teenager, I would judge the sweet spot to try to talk to him about his drinking sometimes. Usually about 6.45 to 7.15 is in the evening on a week day. What strikes me about any thread about alcohol consumption is the level of denial that I grew so familiar to hearing as a teenager. Any excuse not to face the fact that you are drinking more than you should. There was a thread only this week about a babysitting granny who'd had two glasses - according to the Panorama programme (just watched it), that's about the limit for a binge session. The pile on from posters who thought it was fine was all in that tone - denial, normalisation, any justification at all.

God that all sounds awful. How do you live like that? Do you not get sick of it?

I thought everyone drank every weekend until I joined MN. My favourite ever contribution to a thread was “my husband has one or two beers per year after a long hot walk in the summer” when people were discussing their alcohol habits. Peak MN! Each to their own and all that.

I'm 50 s d gave up drinking about 10 years ago because of the risk of dementia and other illness . It had started to disagree with me and my
Group of friends were huge drinkers .

I know view it as poison and worry about mr friends who get very drunk but it's up
To them .

I think because it's legal no one considers the dangers and maybe I just clicked sooner than most .

I do think in generations to come it will be seen as smoking is now !

That sounds like such an awful way to live. Daily hangovers? Why?!

It's not like having 13.5 units means you'll be absolutely fine and 14.5 units condemns you to instant cirrhosis. It's a sliding scale and one that's also affected by how you drink, how long you've been drinking like that, genetics and blind luck. It's more useful to have a guideline than not but whether that guideline is 14 units or 16 doesn't make a huge difference.

Liver cirrhosis, or as it is often referred to - Chronic Liver Disease (staged), can lead to primary liver cancer. That is the danger for those with CLD who don't have symptoms (fully compensated Liver Disease). Even though diagnosed, many with CLD are fine, and continue to be fine as long as they completely abstain from alcohol for the rest of their lives.

They are scanned and monitored every six months though for signs of liver cancer. Every couple of years they may get endoscopy to check for oesophageal varices which can lead to catastrophic bleeding from the gullet.

As you can probably guess I have a family member in this situation. He is absolutely fine, diagnosed 4 years ago at age 55 after many years of heavy and binge drinking. He obviously doesn't drink anymore.

One thing I was disappointed about was the hospital's lack of signposting for supports to give up alcohol. The diagnosis was provided after testing, the order was given to abstain from alcohol, and get bloods every six months + scan. That more or less was it! Proud of him that he succeeded in giving it up and hopefully will have a few more good years now. Fingers crossed.

if you 'find it difficult' then i'm sorry to tell you, you have an alcohol problem.

Daughter of an alcoholic here, and friend of a dead alcoholic. I don't drink at all. It ruins lives. "Wine o'clock", "mother's little helper", you're "boring" if you don't drink, all a load of marketing companies' twoddle to keep the profits rolling in, and sod your children's lives and your health. Alcohol stinks although you probably think there's zero trace the next day. I can smell it on people in the office or the train the next morning - a disgusting smell like rotten cabbages sleeping out through their pores despite having showered.

Alcohol is not funny and it's not clever.

Having a fatty liver damages it too.
Hep C damages it.
Some medication damages it.
Haemochromatosis damages it.
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/non-alcoholic-fatty-liver-disease/

In their 60s have had no tests done. He's been drinking constantly beer/Guinness for decades lost quite a few jobs because of it so not even a functioning alcoholic really. Seems otherwise ok though.
It just surprises me to hear stories about young woman who enjoy the occasional glass of wine getting liver disease in their 30s or 40s I mean is it just bad luck/genes? Or because people don't realise wine is usually a lot stronger than beer?

I was in rehab with a man who told me, full of remorse, that he drank a whole bottle of vodka a week. A tiny bit confused by this, I asked the counsellors about it. "It was a bottle a day", they said, "And then he'd open another one".

Everybody in my group - alcohol and drug addicts - was an attractive-looking, eloquent professional, bar a couple of equally attractive young people from rich families. I'm sure their friends & colleagues had no idea about the depths of their addictions, which, in most cases, led them to do pretty awful things.

About 50% of UK adults drink on at least one day a week. 30% drink less frequently than that, and 20% don't drink at all.

https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/research/alcohol-facts-and-data/alcohol-consumption-uk

Oh but injecting ourselves with drugs to lose weight purchased online along with poison in our faces is fine apparently... just NO wine! 🤷🏻‍♀️