Dh drank a whole bottle of whiskey

[howyoufeeling]

Seriously a whole bottle of Jameson.
Now dh is a good bloke, works his ass off in his own company, hands on dad, looks after us the best he can. He's got SADS, does every winter. He's upped his sertraline as recommended so waiting for that to take effect.
I took the little ones to bed last night and slept all night with them, he drank a whole bottle of whiskey. He didn't cause any trouble or anything you might expect from someone drinking that amount, wasn't sick or anything but couldn't get into bed as his head was spinning so slept downstairs. I've come down this morning and the whole bottle is gone.
Aibu or will this not fuck his liver ?! He's currently in bed dying, has work in a bit. Can't help but feel a little smug and so fucking grateful I don't feel how he does !!

I hope he is ok.
Thing is there is no safe amount to be heavily drinking as most people won't know how well their own liver copes with toxins until it stops working!

I've been a gastroenterology nurse for over 25 hrs and seen quite a few people admitted with chronic liver failure as a result of binge drinking (some only in their 20s who have basically given themselves a death sentence).

It's a horrible, painful, distressing way to die and yet alcohol is so normalized in society. So many people are doing themselves real damage all whilst thinking they are 'getting away with it'.🙁

Where did these 14 units a week come from? I know people who drink a lot more than that and don't have any liver problems.

Alcohol and Sertraline are not a good mix - read the leaflet!

The LD50 for alcohol (the amount it would take to kill 50% of the people who drank it) is 585ml of a 40% spirit like whisky.

Comparing him to other alcoholics you know, he might not look as if he's doing too badly. But if he is regularly drinking enough to build up a tolerance to an amount that would kill the majority of people - and he can still function on that dose - he's in deep trouble.

It is common to try and trivialise things that are really bad for you by cherry picking an example from the extreme end of the distribution who appears to defy solid advocacy. It is not surprising we have such a sickly population when you think about it with the whinging about nanny state and don't tell me what to do anytime anyone advocates healthy living.

Yet.

Hey OP, I get it-I suffer massively from SAD and find winter very, very hard to cope with. I've just come back from a ten days break to southern Europe and it has literally made all the difference in the world being warm and seeing sun. I don't know your circumstances and whether this is something you could do-I get times are difficult for everyone money wise-but this is not a luxury for me because it has such a drastic effect and keeps me from doing exactly what your husband is doing. I'd much rather have a break now than in the summer holidays when we actually get some decent weather at home.

Is this at all a possibility for your family?

If you can try to encourage him to go a month without alcohol to give the sertraline a fighting chance. Its not recommended to drink with it, and at best alcohol as a depressant is fighting sertraline as an anti depressant, kind of neutralising it, so stopping it from working. Tell him he needs to give it 3 weeks at least with just the meds. He could feel so much better.

My alcoholic parent drinks 3 bottles of wine a night and has finished off a bottle of spirit in a night. Has done for more years than I'd like to think. They are still live and kicking.

He will be fine.

For clarity, the LD50 isn't the amount that will kill you eventually if you drink it regularly. It's a one-dose-and-goodnight- Vienna measurement.

If anyone ever drinks. Even one glass of wine….

NEVER EVER TAKE PARACETAMOL on top of it. A hepatology dr told me that…

both are drugs which wreck the liver. He says the amount of people who went out and drank and then decided to try to stop the hangover and took paracetamol than then ended up in hospital very very sick and he promised everyone that they would never take paracetamol even on one glass of wine….

How old are they?

Hi all
I've just read all the comments.
Dh is okay, he felt shitty yesterday obviously but he isn't hungover anymore, still down though, unsurprisingly. He has a real lack of motivation at the moment which he is really struggling with.

We've no alcohol in the house btw, we don't have a drinks cabinet or wine fridge or anything like that, if we have a drink we just go and buy some.
Dh hasn't drank since the bottle, he doesn't want to as he knows he over did it and doesn't plan on having anymore anytime soon.

I will mention about starting a higher dose of sertraline next autumn time, it's only been done so late as it really kicks in after Christmas. He's actually okay up until that point.

A whole bottle of Jameson is a lot, especially with his health issues. If it didn’t cause any immediate major problems, that’s good, but definitely not something to make a habit of. He should really take better care of himself, especially with SADS and on sertraline.

Wait. What? He drinks a bottle of whiskey every week? I know I’m bound to be late to this party but that’s a lot. And I’m not a MN competitive under drinker.

Hi OP,
Does you husband realise that alcohol is a depressant, and can make SAD symptoms worse?

There are lots of website that give this information, if he can find a better outlet to mask the issue, he could find himself feeling even better.

If you are your DH go onto the Drink Aware website and answer the questions, it's pretty likely he/you will see he has a problem with alcohol.

www.drinkaware.co.uk/tools/drinking-check/#/overview

He's binge drinking and regularly drinking half a bottle of spirits at a weekend is a lot.
What's more relevant is he's using it for relief of stress, not social drinking.

It does come over as if you're minimising what is a potentially serious issue.

People can die from drinking a bottle of spirits like he did - alcoholic poisoning - and he also sounds overweight- all very bad things for his heart.

If he has SAD is he not being offered light therapy and do you have a light box at home for him to use?

I wonder if any of the millions of people that wake up with a hangover know this

That cannot be real, right?

Government recommendation is no more than 14 units of alcohol per week. The people you know who drink a lot more than that may not have any liver problems now but liver damage builds up over time and doesn’t generally cause any appreciable symptoms until the damage is significant. It’s possible to have a perfectly normal liver function blood test when your liver is on it’s last legs.

Early sixties 😣 and obviously doesn't think they are an alcoholic

Eastern European guys do this often. Not v healthy though. I'd say no alcohol now.

NHS recommends paracetamol for hangovers because it’s gentler on the stomach but points out that the acetaminophen in it can damage the liver when combined with alcohol. If you’ve really overdone it with alcohol aspirin, ibuprofen or naproxen are better and safer for the bad head but can irritate the stomach and make you feel more nauseous.

And alcohol doesn't only damage the liver. It can also cause various cancers - particularly in the digestive tract. Like most carcinogens this usually takes time so someone could appear perfectly fine at 50 or 60, but already have cellular damage that will be catastrophic a few years down the line.

Jameson is a nice one. At least it wasn't that nasty Bells or no name B&Q stuff.

Obviously, Tequila would have been better.