Alcohol.
PM's series on alcohol begins tonight.
Feel free to click on Comment to let us know your experience. You don't, of course, have to use your own name.
Our reporter, Michael Buchanan has been speaking to 3 different people who've all been affected by the misuse of alcohol.
TOMORROW: Drinking is deeply ingrained in the workplace culture of many professions, but it comes at a cost. Alcohol abuse costs British business an estimated £2 billion a year in lost productivity, and then there's the human cost...Ray Furlong has met Karen Fletcher - once a high-flying city executive, now rebuilding her life after alcohol dependency.
WEDNESDAY: GPs receive very little training on alcoholism. Should they be more able to detect alochol abuse in their patients and do they require more training to help them diagnose the problem? Christopher Landau examines the number of treatment options available for alcoholics and asks whether any of it really works?
THURSDAY: Over the last twenty years, the amount of alcohol that's drunk in France has been rapidly decreasing but according to French Alcoholics Annoymous there are still around 3 million alcholics living in the country with perhaps as many as 10 million people who have a borderline alcohol addiction. Our Paris Correspondent Emma Jane Kirby has been listening to the stories of some of those who have been treated for their illness and hearing how they were helped.
FRIDAY:We'll assess what needs to be done to improve our understanding of alcoholism, its cost to the health service and business and ask whether the testimony we've heard plays enough of a role in various Government alcohol strategies? We're hoping to speak to the Chief Medical Officer, Liam Donaldson and a Professor of Addiction Psychiatry.
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I think the biggest problem surrounding alcohol consumption is that of making heavy drinkers confront the fact that they are abusing alcohol, and therefore putting themselves and their health at great risk.
We have this problem in our own family, at the generation above our own. The couple in question drink regularly and very heavily, in a ritualised way: double aperitifs at lunchtime, shared bottle of wine with lunch, occasionally a brandy thereafter, with drinking resuming at 5.30 - more aperitifs (at least two - and we are talking doubles or trebles, btw!), more wine with dinner, and brandy or whisky for follow.
This has been the ritual for many years. They take the view that, if it had been bad for them, they'd not be around now. The fact is that both of them have suffered unexplained falls in the evenings, with resultant injuries. Not to mention that they must be over the legal drink-drive limit for much of the day, and they both drive.
I'd hate to see the state of their livers now, and fear for their lives and that of others, but any suggestion to them that they should cut down is met with aggression.
Pity their GP if he suggested this!
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Hi Eddy,
Apropos your current focus on alcohol, especially after last week’s spasm on Cannabis. I am one of possibly millions of people in this country who made a conscious decision to leave the demon drink well alone and instead, to find my relaxation in the company of “God’s own Herb”.
Like many I started smoking in the 1960’s. It immediately became apparent that cannabis was a far more civilised narcotic than alcohol. My coterie of smokers were generally more contemplative, educated and appreciative of music, art, life, philosophy and so on. Drinkers on the other hand seemed shouty and crude by comparison and their drug of choice meant they were prone to vomiting, crashing cars, outbursts, violence and falling over.
Since the sixties, in the haze of perfumed smoke I still enjoy to this day, I have lived through the ill informed hysteria on these issues on a cyclic basis. Like most mammals I need my highs and lows. Smoking instead of drinking means I don’t get hangovers. I have run a department at the BBC and set up my own successful company which by the way, worked for Carlton Television around twelve years ago if my memory serves me well…. Funny people!
If we drop the subjective sub text of the politics and concentrate on the brain chemistry of alcohol and the active ingredients of cannabis and alcohol then that might be a start. The government seems to be tackling these issues with about as much intelligence as they went into Iraq.
Why do they patronise us so? Why are they pushing me into taking their filthy state sanctioned drugs? I hate alcohol and the effects it has on people. The way they behave when taking it; the disgusting smell on their breaths which only becomes more sickly as the alcohol breaks down in their stomachs and intensifies usually overnight so that by the time they arrive for work; usually late, hung-over and by this time smelling like an old sick bag…too much information perhaps, enough said…..when my staff come to work like that I send them home…but I wouldn’t employ a drinker in the first place…smokers are generally far more focussed and more sharp in a fuzzy kind of way….a bit like Charles Kennedy on a good day.
I don’t smoke skunk though……as potcheen is to alcohol, skunk is to good old fashioned Ganja.…its hard to get the weaker but deeper African bush nowadays with all the kids demanding skunkweed…..A fine example of genetic modification but without all the subtle fine wine notes of sensimilla grown under tropical skies …..But I hope that when the law changes on Skunk there will be some kind of sliding scale of our impending punishments proportionate to the strength of weed we are smoking or home growing.
If prohibition was ever to return you could bet your bottom dollar people would set up their own moonshine stills at home and modern Al Capone’s re-emerge. Gangsterism and prohibited luxuries always go hand in hand. Smuggling and contraband. Muck and Brass. What the government is concerned about is not Schizophrenia…although if they were able to attune themselves to “the voices out here” they would be doing themselves, and us, a big favour….no…out here on the streets there is an increasing angry subculture of the disenfranchised…call them what you will…they’ve been called Anarchists, and Communists and other “ists” in the past and now they are emerging as Terrorists. Whatever one calls them this week, they are arming themselves partially with money from UK Skunk farms.
Fine…I am now nearly sixty and it is clear I am living in some repetitive cyclic drama where that bit of central casting, responsible for selecting politicians has a deeply ironic sense of humour…where would we be without the duplicity and absurdity of the current political imagination? Integrity is just soooo tedious dwarling….as they become more and more irrelevant and out of touch they have to compensate for their cerebral inadequacies by making us fearful and increasing the powers of the police…..who mostly drink although a few smoke. Don’t ask me how I know! The thought of the old bill off their heads on Skunk doesn’t especially appeal and there’s the rub. A skunk/alcohol combination is lethal. It turns kids into killers….especially on full moons. On the other hand…a drink free kid marginally stoned on old fashioned weed would be either deep in meditative conversation or chilling to the beats. Get the difference politician?
But if it is just a process of “upping the anti…” then the demonstrations of ‘67/68 will look like a picnic compared to the way the disenfranchised have been forced to up their own anti by the attitude of the authorities. No more mister nice guy on the part of the public…the police raised the bar with their guns and Tasters to shoot people carrying chair legs or running on the underground or whatever…they write the self fulfilling prophecies…not us with no power until after the event…by which time it is too late….so the excluded and downtrodden, the poor, the blacks and the Moslems find it necessary to up their game too and dealing in skunk is one way of funding it. Shut the farms down and they will just find another, probably more destructive way of funding the war against hypocrisy. Hail the Ashasheen and keep it organic I say.
Life is not a joke my friends………but self fulfilling prophecies can be…….Terrorism and Skunk and the significant relationship between the two is today’s reason for criminalising everyday folk…who don’t smoke skunk and just smoke ye olde weed….and my dealer is a really sweet ancient Jamaican woman, full of wisdom and I don’t like the idea of seeing her crushed on a wheel …and anyway…who’s fault was it again we have more and more wannabe terrorists plotting everyday?....well it wasn’t mine!...if they’d asked me I could have told them there were no WMD….. War technology was not at the time an Iraqi forte…the Iranians on the other hand are a different kettle of fish. Inshalla fil mish mish.
Skunk is what young people smoke…is has lots of THC (Tetrohydracannabinoids) but it is so strong compared to cannabis it shouldn’t be classified with cannabis as we know it….Jack booted enforcement forces us old fashioned smokers into unwelcome criminality…at least we get to experience the underworld zeitgeist directly and unmediated. .anyone with any sense is already leaving town by the way!!! …inevitably we shall be forced to continue breaking the law and inadvertently funding terrorism or maybe I should just grow a couple of personal plants...after all, its no big deal…it won’t be enough to fund an AK or RPG but all sorts of people bend and break the law……”we learned our enforced duplicity from politicians …they set the agenda….” is a view not alien to the more angry in society. What do you recommend Gordon in your infinite and timeless wisdom? We wish.
Cute legal sleight of hand from well educated but unsound senior politicians is a hugely perceived justification for Terrorism on the part of our increasing home grown terrorist allotment. The more ridiculous irrelevant and asinine government becomes, the more they lie deceive and pervert us; the more justified the disenfranchised; the outsider; the excluded persuade themselves to become in their rage! The need to fund crime, and especially emerging politically motivated crime will only diminish when politicians have learned to get real….and I don’t mean “appear real”…that kind of PR is about as convincing as Gordon Brown’s adopted fake smile disaster….or Tony Blair….by “real” I mean to actually start responding to the interests of the people rather than feeding the profiteers. It doesn’t filter down to here Gordon….not down here mate….hello…hello….can you hear us?…I mean really hear us?!.. Or is it going to require a very loud bang to shock you, and the likes of you into something approaching rational thought. Running around like headless chickens doesn’t wash with us any more. We’d rather politicians did nothing than continue doing the wrong thing. Meaning well, as in believing you are doing the right thing is no longer an excuse. The schizophrenic who obeys the commands of their voices and stabs the stranger means well…..they believe they are doing the right thing with all the conviction of the moment just like prime ministers. Why else does anyone do anything? And schizophrenics are people too…just like the police and politicians and journalists. Sanity covers an increasingly broad spectrum. Some of you are no longer credible, and you know who you are…. We are all more hypocritical than we would wish, but there is a balance and you have once again been “found out!” by a forgotten and malcontent significant minority. Time to inhale boys and forget that Pimms. It’ll only get you into trouble and rot your minds….Oooops…too late!.
Essentially politicians need to start thinking “left field” and abandon the Janet and John linearity so tediously prevalent in the drinker. However surreal the drunk may feel, it rarely looks that way to the sober, or marginally stoned, observer. Don’t we all agree though that drinkers seem especially foolish on this stage ‘o fools?
Unfortunately the Westminster village exists as a kind of La-La land the political players are too frightened to venture from without close security or police to enforce their stupidity. When David Cameron, instead of retreating into whatever safe watering hole he hides at close of play…assuming he ever stops playing…..; was to disguise himself and venture just over that bridge outside his place of work and go and try and hug a hoody South of the River…well it would make an interesting YouTube clip I guess. I doubt he could impersonate anything other than the concerned hooray Henry. Style over content as yet hasn’t seemed a stumbling block for the Eton boys. .Boris made it work for him. I’ll leave it to your listeners to decide on a suitable subterfuge for the other Bullingdon boy….perhaps a new radio game…”Politicians Under Cover”…the let them eat cake diaries….if it wasn’t so funny it would be frightening….and may yet so become….but hey…someone has to have their finger on the trigger or a hand on that ol’ button and anyway…Boris and David know all about war…they were in the CCF. (Combined Cadet Force: Mandatory for most public school personages.and where first hand experience of authorities “emergency powers” chill the soul from an early age.)
I hope people again realise that their liberty will not be granted freely but has to be won. That Watt Tyler was tricked at the eleventh hour. That for evil to prevail, the good just have to sit on their backsides and watch daytime TV. I hope enlightenment happens in China and the Olympics become seriously political. Something has to make watching sport interesting …the indigenous Chinese need disabusing of their current materialism…as do we….Don’t they consult their own I-Chings over there any more?...Two wongs don’t make a right and we should never forget that none of us gets out of here alive…nor can we take all our useless possessions with us when we go….perhaps we should all take up smoking the original unmodified herb, forget skunk, and re-embrace contemplation rather than all this crap work we need to do to buy all the crap we need to buy to keep the once virtuous circle of consumerism spiralling up it’s own vortex…and taking us all with it…..dang…….not my problem for much longer. The people get the governments they deserve. Viva Fidel.
I have yet to meet a single person who has any interest whatsoever in the Olympics….no…I lie….there was a drunk…….said he was a sniper….so when I say things like politicians “get real…” I don’t mean the kind of debateable forms of reality as argued over by smart arsed barristers….I mean “real, real”…like when there isn’t enough to eat or there is a speeding bullet making its way towards your head….!
My advice is to take Britain back to the dark ages before someone bombs us there. We are about to reap what we have sown. Rightly or wrongly, peoples remember being enslaved in one way or another and this country has become rich in so doing. Revenge is a dish best eaten brain meltingly hot and it’s possibly coming to a city near you. Reverse the enclosure land grab and give us all our own allotment on which we can grow our own decent food and anything else we want to grow for that matter. Declare an amnesty for the motor car and sell the steel for plough shares. Just keep the Lorries, buses and tractors the internet and a sophisticated missile defence system. The time has come I regret to say to turn this country into a benign fortress.
When our victims only had spears against our Battling Guns there was no chance of reprisals for our inhumanity to our fellow man so they waited. These days the wait is coming to an end. Modern times provide modern weapons accessible to all with a brain cell and phone connection. The IRA moved from black powder to Semtex. The current incumbents of dissatisfaction will not take long to move from hair bleach to Sarin …it’s just a question of time. An armed society is a polite society they say… however I sold the company and am leaving town in a couple of weeks to hole up with my supplies and an RPG.
Osama Obama
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Osama: I think you may have won the 'longest comment' competition, also that you may expect some response from poshmissusmac.
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OO @2 Fair comment. Can't argue with the first half but it lost focus later on. Guess that's the way the weed blows.
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RJM: Perhaps 'The answer is blowing in the weed'?
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Two members of my family have been affected.
One died an alcoholic from liver disease and another is a recovering alcoholic. I now seem to be in a relationship with a heavy drinker bordering on alcoholism.
I am wondering if the gene thing not only runs through the family but whether you inexplicably end up with an alcoholic as a partner?
I spend a lot of my time wondering whether I should end the relationship, or being let down by my partner, or being in a rage. It's not healthy.
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Have I missed something? I thought this week was alcohol week - having skimmed osama's post it looks like one effect of the weed is verbosity.
Alcoholism is scary - my husband is an alcoholic and I am learning. It breaks up marriages and families and yet society has an indulgent attitude to people who get drunk. Alcohol is everywhere - watch a TV programme and see how long it takes before someone has a drink - you never see a cigarette being lit any more, so they have a whiskey instead. Conversly you almost never see anyone put a kettle on for tea/coffee any more either.
Sorry to rant, but the acute misery felt by alcoholics and there families is not generally realised, and neither is the difficulty for an alcoholic to stop drinking. You are right that health professionals do not understand the condition fully - I somethims think that only the alcoholic does - and then only when not drinking which is rare.
Thank you PM for highlighting the subject
TOD
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I am a "functioning" alcoholic and have been for about 5 years. I have never sought treatment and, probably, never will. I hear many times that it is a terrible disease and, for all those seeking treatment, it is a terrible disease however, I do not see it this way. To me it is a cure for the misery of life. A universal panacea. I know that this sounds (pick your own opinion):
Selfish, childish, misguided and stupid, tragic, self pitying and a "cop out".
I am sure you are all right and that I am all of the above.
I don't care. I drink in the privacy of my own home and am never a problem to my neighbours or society at large. I do not bother the health service, although I accept that one day I will due to my inevitable downwards spiral into ill health (and I assume that the rest of you will simply live forever and never be a burden on others).
I drink to blot out the world.
It works
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I'm sorry, OO(2) but I was losing concentration the further I read your post.
My thoughts are that Alcohol is more dangerous to the country (as a whole) than cannabis. The reason behind this is that alcohol more widely consumed by far, and in much more excess than cannabis. You only have to go into a major (or even minor) town centre of a friday or saturday night to see large numbers of people drinking to dangerous levels. Add to that the number of people who drink at home regularly. Now, imagine the burden that illnesses and/or injuries that result from excessive alcohol consumption place on the NHS. Add to that the strain and grief that is placed on familes of those affected (not only the family of the drinker, but of, say, the victim of a drunk driver).
All that said, the one thing that *wouldn't* work is prohibition. You only have to look at the example of the drugs trade. That's been made illegal for decades now. Has making certain drugs illegal made *any* difference to those that take the drugs? No. From the "street junkie" through to the "well-off cocaine user", there's not been a real impact on the numbers using drugs. I would suggest that it's time to move on. The plolicies on drugs (including nicotine and alcohol) need to be re-thought. It's simple to say "let's delare a war on drugs" or "let's get tough on binge drinking", but also pointless. However, I doubt any politician of any mainsteam party could get themselves elected under such a manifesto.
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I don't think I need to use a fake name for this...
My mother-in-law was a manic-depressive first, and then took to drinking. She became an alcoholic, one who for instance quite often forgot that she had made supper, did it all over again and then forced her family to come back and eat it all over again, screaming and threatening if they didn't all sit down and appreciate her efforts. Quite often she would then fall over and lie unconscious on the floor of her kitchen.
During the ten years or so this was going on her three children in their teens were all badly effected by it in various ways. They all tried to stop her from drinking, but she was a real expert on hiding her bottles.
She also drove a car in a way that caused at least one nasty accident on the South Circular: luckily nobody was injured seriously.
One early morning she decided to prune the roses that grew up the house, fell from a window onto the stone paving below and broke her back, which left her paraplegic. Maybe she wasn't drunk a the time: we will probably never know, but balance of probabilities suggests that she was.
Once she wasn't able to go and buy the poison that had been destroying her, she stopped being alcoholic, but it was a bit late at that point, I feel.
No, I am not a fan of alcohol abuse.
I had a conversation once, during the 1960s, with a man who had commanded the troops in India during part of WWII (I won't give a name, and he's long dead now). At the time he was speaking, there was a big media fuss about cannabis, and he said this:
'Members of the army in India used to drink alcohol and smoke marijuana, and I always felt that the marijuana was far better for them and for the army. If they got drunk, they'd be quite likely to get violent and end up on a charge; if they got stoned they generally just sat around being dreamy and never made any trouble for us or for the locals, and I never saw that it made any of them worse soldiers or people.'
I do feel that he had a point aboout recreational use of the drugs he was talking about. Addiction is a different matter, obviously, but when it isn't a question of addiction and all the problems that causes, I prefer to associate with someone who is stoned rather than with someone who is drunk, just because of the different behaviour s/he is likely to show towards *me*!
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mymayday (6) It seems that you've never been far from problems caused by alcohol. I hope your situation improves soon and that you can find some way to help yourself - and perhaps your partner too.
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Reading this accounts has reminded me of the woman who married my ex fiance. She was from Glasgow and, like many a Glaswegian, came from a family of alcoholics. When I first knew her, she was in her 20s and already a very heavy drinker. When she married, her husband drank to keep up with her. Very 'Days of Wine and Roses' (a very sobering film). Anway, by the time she was 40, she'd had a series of hospitalisations and was told by her specialist that, unless she stopped drinking altogether, she would be dead within a year. She cut back for a few months, then it built up again, and, though she lived a little longer than the prognosis, she was dead by the time she was 45.
Fortunately, her husband (my ex fiance) was less addicted and able to reduce his intake to a level which he now maintains. No doubt he has done a fair bit of damage to his liver, but with luck it won't affect his life chances too much.
Note to White Rat: As it happens, he is also diabetic.
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Wouldn't it be nice if there was a breath tester in every pub /club where if you were over the drink drive limit you were not served and asked to leave (whether you were the driver or not)
...
Wouldn't that stop those ghastly images of young girls completely out of it rolling around in the gutter very late on a Friday / Saturday / Sunday night?
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OO2,
Did you say something?
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I feel like I am attending an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.
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15. Naw, this BA(n)A. Blog Addiction (nearly) Anonymous, the parenthesis due to hardy soles like you.
It all makes me feel I need a drink.
A thought, was prohibition like force feeding the whole nation because of anorexia or was it like stopping a few hecklers in church 'cos the atmosphere the few create messes it for everybody else. Allegedly.
(Well, it's a very low hurdle when it comes to what I count as MY having a thought).
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mygloriousleader @ 13, I have been told that the profit-margin on a pint of lemonade, which typically costs at least as much as beer, is a great deal more for the pub because of the tax.
So perhaps what we need to do is persuade the pubs that they would make more money if they put their support to making it trendy to drink soft drinks if you are driving or getting a bit stocious (I don't know how that should be spelt, but it's a lovely way to describe someone who has drink taken), thus both reduicing the number of drunks on the streets and roads *and* increasing their profit, which latter is the thing that might get through to them.
Combine that with your idea of there being some way for both bar staff and punters to know how far gone each person is, and it could be a winner.
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pmL 16,
I only drink after six. Anything less than that isn't drinking.
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Recently we have seen the Co-operative Society boasting about their ethical banking service. I visited my local Co-op supermarket recently. Very little choice was available, apart from the huge variety of cigarettes by the chekout, the enormous selection crisps and other 'convenience' foods, but most of all the aisle after aisle of alcohol. This is symptomatic of the liberal establishment. Selling weapons to foreign countries is terrible, but it's fine to kill our own citizens with these awful addictive drugs. If those who rule us were serious about caring for the people they would do something about this problem.
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My mother was an alcoholic and suffered from depression from when I was about 15 until she died when I was 48. It was like a cloud lifting when she died. Most people seemed to think that she was a rather eccentric old lady who drank a little too much. Only if they saw the squallor she lived in or tuly believed me when I described how she never drank anything apart from alcohol from the minute of waking to when she finally passed out. Please, if you have someone who says they have a relative who is an alcoholic, believe them and try to understand. It is a living nightmare.
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My father was a 'practicing' alcoholic for his entire adult life (please don't jump on me for suggesting that a once-alcoholic can ever stop being one - I wasn't). He was also hugely intelligent (more than I will ever be without alcohol) and a very nice bloke who, seemingly, could not handle the expectations life placed on him. Only the sadness of being an adult myself and watching him dissipate, and ultimately end, his life in booze could exceed my childhood angst and bewilderment at not having a dad to kick a football around with, teach me how to be a 'man' and cheer me on as I failed at sports day (by necessity an idealised impression of fatherhood). Ultimately, I suspect he did me a favour in having very little to do with me for the majority of my childhood, but it left a big gap in my life. My own parenting has been a virtual negative image of his, I hope.
Alcoholic fathers, take heed!
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Alcohol is rated the third worst cause of early death and ill-health in the West by the World Health Organisation.
Gordon Brown cut the cost of drink in every Budget, by freezing duties.
Then he has the nerve to expect us to believe his cannabis policy is motivated by concern for public health!!!
I object strongly to the demonisation of cannabis, and the glorification and promotion of alcohol, in BBC programmes.
The figures for alcohol mortality put about by the ONS are a blatant lie. They only count liver disease. Actually, for every organ in the body there is at least one fatal condition you can *only* get by drinking.
Plus alcohol is implicated in a majority of all cases of fire, of acicdent and of violence. Almost all domestic violence is caused by drink. And alcohol is involved in 70% of suicides.
There are at least three distinct types of psychosis you can only get by drinking.
Alcohol is connected with tyranny and atrocity throughout history. It is the drug of choice for murderers.
But I would still not prohibit it, vicious evil poison though it is. I would rather allow a free market in recreational drugs, with harm reduction made *the only* objective of an integrated and comprehensive drugs policy. Only when people have the opportunity to try better drugs (and there is no worse drug than alcohol, except possibly crack cocaine, and tobacco of course)
.
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.... Only when people have the opportunity to try better drugs (and there is no worse drug than alcohol, except possibly crack cocaine, and tobacco of course)
(pushed submit by mistake here, apologies..)
Only when people have the option of better drugs will society begin to emerge from the catastrophe of its alcoholism.
If I'd not had the opportunity to try cannabis, I would have died from alcohol, years ago.
.
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I remember a patient on an acute medical admissions unit. His liquid intake was entirely strong cider when he wasn't in hospital and he was a regular user of cannabis and cocaine. He didn't smoke because (and he told me this in all seriousness) it was dangerous. He was completely unable to comprehend that his alcohol use was a problem to him and this was essentially why he was admitted. He even tried to tell me that the fact it came from apples meant that it counted as one of his 5 a day. There was absolutely no understanding that it was at all hazardous.
Shortly afterwards the Trust introduced a very quick screening tool to be used with every admission. We had estimated that about one-third of our patients would have a problem with alcohol, it was nearer two-thirds.
I've now moved to another hospital and we're responsible for the health promotions stands. Every summer I run a "responsible drinking" display and every summer I get asked whether the DrinkAware Trust unit calculators are accurate. It still seems to come as a surprise to some people that (a) drinking can be harmful to your health and (b) their use may present a problem to them. I'm supposedly in a nicer area with a richer demographic. Using the same scoring we used to use it still works out at about 60% with alcohol use that could present a health risk.
The reason that I remember the first guy is because he physically reminded me of a chap that I went to Uni and shared a house with. He was a recovering alcoholic who did well, then lapsed. He believed that he was "cured" of his alcoholism and could enjoy alcohol socially but over the period of 4 months I saw him go from a reasonable, well balanced, kind man to a violent, verbally aggressive, selfish individual who couldn't hold down a job and had no concern for anyone else. Eventually he realised that he had a problem again (when he went to make a cup of tea and found that there were only cans of lager in the fridge and no milk) and sought help. Once straight again he did apologise to me but then asked why I hadn't pointed out to him. I was terrified of him. Simple as that.
As a fledgling healthcare professional should I have intervened? Possibly, but at the end of the day he needed to hit rock bottom to recognise he had a problem and needed to solve it. If I'd said anything I'd probably have got punched.
He's a decent guy when he's dry and I have a lot of respect and affection for him. I have lost contact with him which makes me think he's off the wagon again.
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My mother died in 1993 after thirty years of extreme alcoholism that wrecked her physically and emotionally, ruined every relationship in her life, and and blighted irreparably the lives of her four children and her husband.
The point I want to make is that although we are becoming more and more aware of the damage - the cost in lives - of alcoholism, the true statistics are probably even worse than we realise.
National mortality statistics are assessed from entries on death certificates under 'Cause of Death". My poor mother died in a house fire. She started the fire herself by dropping a lit cigarette while drunk, too drunk to save herself. But the death certificate gave "Inhalation of Fire Gases" as cause of death, so the true, underlying reason of her alcoholism goes unrecorded as a factor. This can't be unique and may not even be uncommon.
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The true cost of alcohol is carried by those close to the alcoholic. I leave aside any comment on the alcoholic themselves - my wife has been one for several years and I have been through the gambit of reasons, excuses, blame etc. Suffice it to say that I have now settled on the fact that alcoholism is the result of a life choice - it is not a disease save that it's effects on the rest of us are dramatic and malevolent.
I have seen a 'normal' small nuclear (and extended) family destroyed by the self indulgence antics of my wife. My young son has seen and heard things he should never have experienced - at any age. He has been exposed to violence; wholly ianappropriate behaviour; direct harm; emotional turmoil and blackmail. He has even offered himself to his mother as a decoy to protect me. In common with other alcoholics, she has been offered as much help as she needs - but refuses to take it.
In my experience, there is a genetic link to this problem (which I find scary in the extreme). I comfort myself in the knowledge that this appears to be on the female side of her family.
There is a more fundamental social point here. It is my firm belief that the main source of our modern epidemic is not in the bars and clubs, the boozy weekends and happy hours enjoyed by young people. Whilst this may be the start - it is far from the bedrock. This lies on our supermarket shelves and is ruthlessly harvested by the ranks of middle class, stay-at-home, 'lounge drinkers'. These people are not only ending up in the same hospitals, with the same diseases and problems as obvious 'drunks' - they are the real threat to society by virtue of their supposed roles as responsible parents and role models. You don't have to be a youthful, binge drinking lout to be a threat to your family - and the rest of us!
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I've been married to an alcoholic for the past 33 years. Some of the times have been good, some nightmarish.
My husband has been trying on and off to kick the habit. He starts off with good intentions but never manages more than about 8 weks of sobriety at a stretch.
We're lucky in that we have a supportive GP who is understanding and will prescribe detox medication at the end of a 3 - 4 week bender, when my husband decides that he is feeling too ill to continue. At his worst he drinks 3 - 4 bottles of wine a day, and is argumentative and abusive, although never physically violent.
We both feel frustrated about is the poor level of support for both the alcoholic and the family. There's lots if you can pay. The local NHS counselling service has a 3 month waiting list! I have found counselling for myself which has been useful.
What is not widely publicised is the effect it has on the family of the alcoholic. My two teenage daughters were reluctant to bring friends or boyfriends home. Teenage sleepovers were usually at someone else's house. I felt very alone when they both left home to go to university, and longed for the holidays when they would be home again.
My job as a teacher has kept me sane. I don't tell people at work as it's somewhere I go to leave the problem behind, although teaching is a very demanding job, especially with a disrupted home life.
People who don't have first hand experience don't tend to be very understanding, and they don't know how dangerous it is for the alcoholic to just stop and go cold turkey.
I've felt lonely and isolated, as our social life has suffered. Planning social events, holidays etc is difficult as we never know whether my husband will be in a fit state to take part.
This time round, my husband has now been dry for 6 weeks, after a lot of resistance he has joined the local AA group, and he seems more determined to stay dry this time.
Hopefully he will succed this time.
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I live with my partner for around nine years now and have two children together,around three years ago she started drinking
a few bottles a week then slowly started getting plastered two or three days a week.
It got so bad she would turn up at nursery/school drunk and keep the kids off school so she could drink,it soon esculated into passing out on the street,turning up at work drunk and getting into bad situations.Around six months ago the social services got involved and put our kids into the care of their gradparents for a period of time to see if she would get help and stop drinking.
It worked and the kids and me thought everything would get better,i was suprised by the help an avaliable but as soon as the heat went down she just started again as i am writing this the social workers are prepairing to take our kids back into their granparents care,because as their dad in scotland and as we arent married i have no writes over custody of my kids unless my partner gives her consent.And that isnt going to happen,this curse on society is destroying my kids lifes and scaring them for life,is it not time this was put up to a cat A drug or is that just me being stupid.
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I lived with active alcoholism for many years and know only too well the devastating effect it has on every member of the family--those closest to the alcoholic suffer the most. I found the help I needed by attending Al-Anon meetings which provide a safe place for family and friends of the alcoholic to share their experience, strength and hope and find their own recovery. Living with an alcoholic can be very lonely and isolating and I felt I needed to post this as though most people have heard of AA, few have heard of Al-Anon which is a shame as for every alcholic there are usually several family members affected. We need to know that there is help and hope out there.
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jt001: That sounds a great organisation - Will Eddie and the team follow up, I wonder?
As an aside, these accounts of life as, or with, an alcoholic are tragic, and mirror my memories of that great Jack Lemmon/Lee Remick film, Days of Wine and Roses (which I referred to earlier). While no doubt dated in some ways, is it not time for this film to be broadcast? It is truly sobering. (Oh, and before that was The Lost Weekend, another, and perhaps even more shocking, account of the effects of alcoholism.)
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What is it like having an alcoholic mother? I'll tell you; she was never interested in my life, what happened at school, my jobs, boyfriends, etc. I never bought friends home because I didn't know how she would behave. She was, and still is, abusive and aggresive when she is drunk, hurling insults and abuse at everyone. When I was a teenager she used to talk about suicide all the time; how she didn't care about living,her children or my father. Every single event - lunch, dinner, family occasions, birthdays, weddings, parties - dominated by her drinking; watching out for her; trying to reduce her alcohol intake; trying to protect other family members from her vitriolic tongue; trying to dodge the abuse myself; trying to prevent her falling over and picking her up when she did (now calling the paramedics as she is too frail to help herself); family conferences that amounted to nothing (my father refusing to put his foot down and insist she go for treatment, or worse, in denial); always arguments, nasty, viscious ones. It poisoned all our relationships; I even thought I shouldn't have children as I didn't trust I would have the parenting skills. I realised I was wrong, but too late. That is the tragedy of my life.
My mother insists her drinking only affects her. If only! She has been offered very limited help by her GP but there is really very little available and she has refused even that. Drinking is so socially acceptable that my father used to say they couldn't have an alcohol free house as 'what would we say when we had guests round?' 'My wife is an alcoholic' would have been a good start.
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Dear Peeps,
I registered yesterday and posted two comments. Are they getting through?
Many thanks Peter
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dildzin (Peter) your comments are definitely coming through (on the next thread). I know it can be friustrating waiting to see comments appear, especially as other people's appear instantaniously. This is because of the system the Beeb have in place to review a user's first few posts, then after a while you'll become "trusted" and allowed to post straight away. I hope this has explained things.
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USERS
British culture is suffused with alcohol. All aspects of social interaction are more or less dependent on alcohol. But alcohol is a mind altering substance (drug) and a level of unease (guilt) accompanies its use – until the first drink has been taken.
There are 19 bars in the Parliament building. Doctors are “users”. You cannot get an objective admission of alcohols (mis)place in society, while we are all undeclared users.
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And the government continue with its moral panic over cannabis. The stories here are very sad, but only the tip of the iceberg of the real cost of alcohol. But to add it to the substances the government don't want us to consume would achieve nothing. What's needed is a real education policy towards all drugs including alcohol, a scrapping of the dangerous drugs act which basically says all these are dangerous, but alcohol is ok, and consistency in society's attitude to mind altering drugs.
Alcohol kills more people than all the presently listed 'dangerous drugs' combined, and is at least as disruptive of relationships as heroin. But the government wants 'to protect children and young people from the dangers of cannabis', so the millions of adults who use it as a mature choice don't matter. Pity they don't feel so concerned about booze.
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I was having an alcohol problem so I went to my GP. The following week I got a letter saying I am on the waiting list that is approximately 6 months. it took me a lot of courage to go to the doctor in the first place as it felt a slap in the face. By the time I got an appointment I had already got things under control by will power alone. I guess I am lucky.
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One way for alcoholics to cut down or even stop would be to switch to cannabis which would numb the desire to get out of it on alcohol while calming and chilling the alcoholic so they were happier and friendlier towards other family members. It's actually been used in trials for this very reason, with much success [sorry, I don't have a link]. If they don't wish to continue with cannabis after drying out, they can just stop.
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I hope that anyone with problems with alcohol, can get the NECESSARY help with there addiction.....
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parissalam, although our situations are different - it was my husband who was alcoholic - you could have been describing the last seven years of my life and all the stress and anger I went through each day. I use the past tense because my husband died two months ago, his liver finally packed up. The cost to our relationship and our lives was enormous both financially and emotionally. In the end i was more his carer than his wife, trying to limit the damage he did to himself and others and picking up the pieces when I couldn't prevent him from doing something. We rarely went anywhere and never planned anything, his mood swings were violent and he was suspicious of every moment I was out of his presence including when I was at work - so much for ones twenties being the most carefree of ones life! Since his death i have been struggling with the range of emotions that I have been experiencing, grief of course because despite everything he was still my husband and i did love him, then there is a sense of relief that I no longer have to worry what new problems he might have caused and also there is a sense of anticipation for my own future, but this has also provoked feelings of guilt that i should be looking forward when he has died. I sometimes feel as if it is now I who am drunk, drunk on the freedom that I have to live my life without all the stress and worry and pain that he caused, however, first i have to sort through his things and that is a sobering experience.
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petepassword: Surely it is better altogether to beat addiction of all kinds.
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Big Sister @ 40, I was contemplating petepassword's post @ 37 and wondering: have I been incredibly lucky in knowing nobody this past fifty years who has been addicted to cannabis of its ownself? I never have. Drugs of many kinds, often with cannabis as part of a package, but not cannabis on its own. And I do at this moment know at least ten people who smoked it a lot when they were younger and have now given it up altogether, mostly because they couldn't be bothered with all the hassle of finding it and the people that finding it meant they had to stay associating with.
Maybe substituting for an addictive substance that destroys your body, one that doesn't seem to do so, might be a way out of the addiction and leave it possible to tail off on the cannabis use when the addiction had been quelled? That's allowing that it might genuinely be easier to stop taking cannabis than to stop taking alcohol.
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My mother started drinking after the death of my father when I was 8 years old. This blighted my life from then until about 2 years before her death aged 70. She ruined what should have been happy occasions and left scars that are hard to heal. There were happy times as she was not a continuous drinker more in bouts to quote her 'make things better'. She never recognised she had a problem so never sought help and no one came to her or mine and my brothers aid. I suspect she was depressed and this was never picked up and she wouldn't seek help. Family seemed to prefer to pretend it wasn't happening. In later years they wondered why when my brother was going through a nervous breakdown he didn't want to see her and implied we were callous. There was never any physical violence but it was the psychological trauma that has lasted most. In her last 2 years of life she seemed more settled and the drinking reduced in fact relationships had improved and it was tragic that at this point she died. So I am lucky that there are happy memories too and I did love my mum despite it all.
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What a marvelous thread..
So many postings describing real world first hand experience in such a way that we by-standers can only feel humble.
Every such post shows honesty, integrity and sheer human decency.
Curiously this thread got off to a quixotic start and there was some throat clearing and some sarcasm (sadly) from me (sadly).
Reality won through on this this thread in the sense that the posts at their best here are not from experts but from peopel who are in the whirlpool that alcoholism creates.
Their courageous ability to tell their stories and the stories themselves hold me in rapt awe.
Congratulations all of you and may good fortune smile on you all.
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pmLeader/mac - I suspect that for the very first and most probably last time, I agree with the sentiment of your post.
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I would urge everybody who has posted here to complain every time we hear or see overt alcohol promotion on the BBC.
It is clearly wrong to broadcast entire series whose only aim is to promote drinking ("Food programme", Food and Drink", etc. etc. etc.)
It is wrong for presenters to refer to drinking as fun, sociable or safe, yet this occurs on a daily basis.
Someone in the UK is dying from drink as you read this.
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Having finally been driven from home by the alcohol fuelled antics of my wife, my prime concern is for my young son. We already fled once - an occasion when my wife was arrested and cautioned for assaulting me . I hasten to say we only did this because my son pulled a knife from the kitchen block and pleaded with her to stop and 'harm him instead'. Out-of-hours social services advised me to keep him away from home until we could get further advice from the district. The latter promptly advised that we went home again. Because of the additional upset all of this caused, I have now left him in the care of his mother (who loves him dearly - possibly obsessively). I left because all of the rows, emotional blackmail, violence and other baggage were distressing him greatly. I repeat - she DOES love him.
This morning, after the 3rd attempt to gain help, social services have again told me they are closing the case. Their argument is that, if I am so concerned, it is for ME to REMOVE him from home. This may sound logical but is far easier said than done, What effect does this have on the child? What effect does it have on his mum? Who deals with all the hysteria and physical ramifications? What if I don't want him uprooted from home and separated from Mum? What if we want mum to get better so that she CAN care for him properly? WHAT THE HELL ARE SOCIAL SERVICES FOR??????
If I, the father, was the alcoholic, would the result be the same???
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Born in Scotland, emigrated to Canada at age 13, now back to live, after 50 years. Constant listener to BBCRadio Four - am amazed at how many references there are to people being drunk - as if it were nothing at all but a bit of fun - Being drunk is not so freely discussed on any other radio station I have ever heard - none in fact except those in the U.K. I have reached the conclusion that there is perhaps an overly lax attitude to 'being drunk'. In my young days, 'being drunk' was something to hide, and be ashamed of! What a change in this society. And no wonder so many kids drink freely, too much and too often.
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Are you sure you want contributors like Osama Obama spoil your blog site by simply not knowing when to stop. It is unpleasant to read through the smoke-induced gabblings of someone who thinks he is clever, but in reality is a bit of a long bore! Ther ought to be a cap on the length of blog, so that it may be perhaps a magazine article length, bu not the length of an entire magazine!! (signed) Eyesore
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Is this light-hearted attitude to drinking that exists in the UK not a cultural thing? Sorry, but I think especially in England there has been 'polite' drinking (even the late Queen Mother it is said loved her little drinkies). Worse inScotland, it is seemingly a rite of passage to be a manly drunk these days. And the poor women who become addicted this is the quickes way to age and lose your looks - and become even lonelier than ever.
I do agree, having seen both, with the person who is suggesting that smoking maryjane is better than getting drunk; absolutely less aggressive; no hangover; no dependancy except in the mind a little; a slower, dreamier high that usually doesn't cause fall-downs, weaving around, and crude behaviour. But most people won't believe it, so don't blame the government for keeping the weed illegal!
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The families and friends of alcoholics can have a tough time too trying to cope with the daily consequences of a loved ones drinking but thankfully there is a national support group which can help called Al-Anon Family Groups - it is for anyone whose life is or has been affected by someone else's drinking. It has been established for well over 50 years and I can certainly vouch for the fact that without I don't think I could have coped. I tried everything to stop my husband from drinking but nothing ever worked but when I went to Al-Anon I found out that everyone else had done nearly all the same things I had. It was comforting to know others knew what I was going through and I no longer felt so isolated. If you've tried everything and nothing works give Al-Anon a try. They have a helpline 020 7403 0888 and its manned from 10 am until 10pm.
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brightDoratee @ 49, the thing I wonder (and have no evidence about) is whether there is truth in the suggestion that cannibis *causes* the ills it has been associated with, or whether it *triggers* them. I can't see any way for this ever to be tested, because once someone's condition has happened one can't go back in time and see whether it would have happened anyway, as it were.
There have been suggestions that some people have 'addictive personalities', and are more likely than others to become addicted to *something*: drink, drugs of one sort and another, cigarettes, caffeine, sugar, fatty foods, or whatever else. If that is so, and they are likely also to have a limit to the number of things they are addicted to, then I would certainly feel that being addicted to something comparatively harmless and not so likely to cause them to harm other people would be a good thing, but I can think of no way to produce any evidence about it, since one can't ever show whether the same person being addicted to alcohol or to some other thing over the same period of his life has had a worse effect on him and his family.
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I was glad to see someone else mention Al-Anon and also give the contact info. I was going to put that in but thought it wasn't allowed. Might also be worth mentioning that there are groups for young people 13-18 (Al-Ateen). Those of us who live with this illness need all the help we can get.
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It's a real problem trying to get my son to accept the fact that he is drinking too much. I've tried to talk to him about this- the damage he's doing to his body etc but he gets very abusive. I don't know what to do as I am frightened that he'll never talk to me again or that our once brilliant relationship will be ruined forever.Any ideas out there?
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