what do you die of if you die through alcohol abuse??????

[blushingm]

and is it true that alcoholism runs in families?

As well as dying of bleeding disorders teh clotting system can be thrown the other way as a result of liver damage. My father actually died of multiple pulmonary emboli...apparently teh pathologist had ever seen anyone with som many emboli.

I saw my father once a year in teh last few years and only on my mothers instructions. don't regert not seeing him for months before he died. But I am me and you are you....it is a decision that only you can make...

I think Al-anon might be able to help you through some of these things.
I think at the moment you have the option still to see her, whereas if she dies, you may well regret it, as that option will have been taken away.
You don't need to see her, and change your mind about the things that happened all those years ago, you can go just for you as such
All the best

my uncle died of liver failure (brought on my cirrohsis (sp? due to alcoholism) a couple of years ago. There are other addictive personalities in the family but most are chocoholics rather than alcoholics, I am a shopoholic mostly. He had symptoms of liver problems for about 2 years, but the yellowness and bloating was a lot worse in the last 6 months. He started to suffer regular strokes in the last 6 months too which paralysed him slightly.

I am sure things are very difficult with the decision about whether to see your Mum or not and wouldn't be able to offer any advice either way. Although it might be painful to hear I think it is right to warn you that liver disease is not a nice way to go - if you do decide to visit your Mum I would do it as soon as you can, as if she deteriorates it will be quickly and the last 2 weeks of my Uncle's life weren't pleasant. He couldn't really communicate and was not in a nice state.

I would also say, like others have, that there is no reason for you to feel guilty, alcoholics answer only to the drink and despite our best attempts my Uncle only stopped drinking for short periods of his life, and only when HE wanted to.

she may be in and out of hospital with 'scares' every few months or so. IME there was a cycle with regards to the alcoholic I knew: weight loss because she stopped eating and only drank; jaundice, collapse, hospital for a couple of weeks to clean her out, back home, slow build-up of drinking, then repeat. This cycle continued for years.

The end was pretty unsensational to start with: she fell badly when she was drunk once, and ended up in hospital but this particular time her body didn't have the strength to get back to normal. Liver collapsed and then she developed loads of sores that started to leak and didn't stop. Blood transfusions that didn't help, multiple organ failure. Had to have a central vein thing put in because all her other veins started to collapse. Took a week to lose consciousness once it all went pear-shaped and then another week to die (pallitative care only, as is common when you have multiple organ failure). There was a risk she would die from drowning because of the fluid that built up on her lungs, but she died of heart failure first. Truly horrendous. There was no way of foreseeing that this incident was going to have a different outcome to the others that preceded it. In fact even during her last stay in hospital there were times at the beginning when she looked as if she might recover, and things hung in the balance for a week or two. All in all the whole thing took about 7 weeks: couple of weeks when she followed normal pattern of starting to get better. one week where she had a couple of health problems and then a cascade of problems which started as minor and rapidly escalated

Not sure if it was a 'good' thing for someone susceptible to alcoholism to see someone go through (hard to know how to term that sensitively): certainly no-one who saw her is under any illusions with regard to the sexiness of alcohol, but if someone is an alcoholic then I'm not sure seeing that is going to change them. If anything it might depress them more and depression could trigger more alcohol dependance.....

Sorry if TMI.

An alcoholic may also end up with Korsakoff syndrome, not good, have nursed many people with it.