[smeagol]

yeah its all mad maybe they should have a seperate fund for the nhs that gets taken out of our wages and those who need gastric bands etc pay more.
i dont know something should be done as there is people in need of help just not getting it.
the alcoholic one is tricky you got to help them if you can if the health requires it.

gastric band is a luxury and should not be provided.

[Vicky.]

Originally Posted by smeagol

yeah its all made. maybe they should have a seperate fund for the nhs that gets taken out of our wages and those who need gastric bands etc pay more.
i dont know something should be done as there is people in need of help just not getting it.
the alcoholic one is tricky you got to help them if you can if the health requires it.

gastric band is a luxury and should not be provided.

But she has no intention of ever stopping drinking, and has told the nurses and such that too. Yet they are still obligated to help her? Seems wrong that

[smeagol]

Originally Posted by Vicky.

But she has no intention of ever stopping drinking, and has told the nurses and such that too. Yet they are still obligated to help her? Seems wrong that

yea she's among thousands. but could you turn them away if they needed something medical.
its like if someone is obese and they have a heart attack you cant turn them away cause its there own fault and they wont change their lifestyle
you got to help them and hope some learn. is all they can do


gastric bands boob jobs and the kid thing though is bad. thats a choice not a need

[joeysteele]

Originally Posted by smeagol

yea she's among thousands. but could you turn them away if they needed something medical.
its like if someone is obese and they have a heart attack you cant turn them away cause its there own fault and they wont change their lifestyle
you got to help them and hope some learn. is all they can do


gastric bands boob jobs and the kid thing though is bad. thats a choice not a need

I don't know myself as to alcoholic related illnesses and smoking,after all the taxes on these items bring in massive revenue to the treasury.
As it happens however,I know someone who is an alcoholic, he really has tried to keep off it but fails.
There again, he wouldn't be an alcoholic if there weren't dangers of him relapsing and drinking again.

If alcoholics are not drink free for at least 6 months,then they would not be considered for a transplant, however it cannot be right to leave people in pain and not help someone if the help is available.

As I have seen, it is very far from easy being an alcoholic, once the Liver disease is advanced too then it is a hard existence,I couldn't turn my back on them.
It is also the ignorance of other people too, when out with the person I am taking about it is incredible the pressure he gets from others saying ''one drink won't hurt you'' and some have even poured a single vodka into his soft drink too.

People with any eating disorders be it obesity caused by overeating or people starving themselves are as much a drain on the NHS but I still hold with the view, they need help as well.
Turning backs on people doesn't seem a constructive answer to such problems,that's my thinking anyway.

[Vicky.]

Originally Posted by joeysteele

As it happens however,I know someone who is an alcoholic, he really has tried to keep off it but fails.
There again, he wouldn't be an alcoholic if therer were dangers of him relapsing and drinking again.

I have all kinds of respect..and pity really...for people who do want to quit but can't. However the girl I know has totally blackened my view tbh. She openly admits she will never try to get off it as she enjoys it, she has told nurses, consultants, everyone in the hospital that she has no intention of stopping drinking, yet they continue to waste money, time and resources on her when others who actually do want to help themselves are made to wait years for treatment. That in my eyes is completely wrong.

[user104658]

Originally Posted by Vicky.

I have all kinds of respect..and pity really...for people who do want to quit but can't. However the girl I know has totally blackened my view tbh. She openly admits she will never try to get off it as she enjoys it, she has told nurses, consultants, everyone in the hospital that she has no intention of stopping drinking, yet they continue to waste money, time and resources on her when others who actually do want to help themselves are made to wait years for treatment. That in my eyes is completely wrong.

I wouldn't worry too much. If they're routinely having to drain fluid from around her liver, she'll be dead soon. So... there's that warm and fuzzy thought to keep you plugging on.

[Vicky.]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

I wouldn't worry too much. If they're routinely having to drain fluid from around her liver, she'll be dead soon. So... there's that warm and fuzzy thought to keep you plugging on.

Well I thought that a year and a half ago when she started looking like a simpson, but it hasn't happened yet.

[joeysteele]

Originally Posted by Vicky.

I have all kinds of respect..and pity really...for people who do want to quit but can't. However the girl I know has totally blackened my view tbh. She openly admits she will never try to get off it as she enjoys it, she has told nurses, consultants, everyone in the hospital that she has no intention of stopping drinking, yet they continue to waste money, time and resources on her when others who actually do want to help themselves are made to wait years for treatment. That in my eyes is completely wrong.

I accept all you say there, however we were not there as she was saying this.
I may well be wrong here and maybe being too soft on alcoholism but it does become a functioning mechanism, many alcoholics dread even the thought of not being able to feel as they do when they drink it.

A lot of external bravado in fact hides massive insecurity,fear and even screaming for help inside.

It is something that has to be kept plugging away, at to first get the acceptance of the problem from the person affected, and then hopefully guide them to get the real deep help needed.
Which often succeeds for a time but they can fail again and drink again which is why they are alcoholics.

I have come across people who say they will take their chance and live as they have been but once that breakthrough maybe comes and they are 'ready' for help then the old bravado and their on the surface confidence gives way to conceding the need for and receiving that help.

This person may or may not be arrogant in her attitude to her alcohol problem or she may be putting on that bravado act borne out of massive fear of the treatment she will hopefully one day accept.

As I say, maybe I am myself too soft,I just don't see how giving up on anyone who needs help but refuses to see that they do at present will be of any help or right even.

[user104658]

Originally Posted by joeysteele

I accept all you say there, however we were not there as she was saying this.
I may well be wrong here and maybe being too soft on alcoholism but it does become a functioning mechanism, many alcoholics dread even the thought of not being able to feel as they do when they drink it.

A lot of external bravado in fact hides massive insecurity,fear and even screaming for help inside.

It is something that has to be kept plugging away, at to first get the acceptance of the problem from the person affected, and then hopefully guide them to get the real deep help needed.
Which often succeeds for a time but they can fail again and drink again which is why they are alcoholics.

I have come across people who say they will take their chance and live as they have been but once that breakthrough maybe comes and they are 'ready' for help then the old bravado and their on the surface confidence gives way to conceding the need for and receiving that help.

This person may or may not be arrogant in her attitude to her alcohol problem or she may be putting on that bravado act borne out of massive fear of the treatment she will hopefully one day accept.

As I say, maybe I am myself too soft,I just don't see how giving up on anyone who needs help but refuses to see that they do at present will be of any help or right even.

In the case of my mother (who died of pneumonia brought on by liver failure, at the end of March this year) it seems like there were many reasons. When she was alive I was endlessly frustrated by the fact that she wouldn't stop and didn't ever seem to try (she hadn't been sober more than a couple of days at a time since it started, around 15 years ago when I was in my early teens). It drove me mental, to the point where I was only just about putting up with her, and didn't particularly like having her around my kids. Sh wasn't a bad / horrible / nasty / aggressive drunk like some, but just tended to get "weird" or upset and my 4 year old would just look confused... I didn't want her around it.

I thought pretty much the same as what's being said in this thread, throughout my entire teens and for my adult life up until the point of her death. Why was she so selfish / why not just stop / if she was so miserable why keep doing it / what a waste of money, time and resources (she was in and out of hospital a few times a year).

I only actually started to understand why when we cleared out her house, and I found a load of notebooks / "workbook" type things from the times that she had been in a hospital rehab unit. It basically turns out that she had many complex issues from her childhood, her parents put extreme academic pressure on her and far too much expectation, and also there was some trauma from my grandmother (both of my grandparents were in WWII, a soldier and a nurse) telling her some pretty horrific things about what they had done during the war. I won't go into details but... messed up stuff.

Anyway, her alcoholism started when my grandmother died (my grandfather died before I was born), and a lot of it starteing was being unable to handle those old issues.

What I found most interesting was the mechanism for being unable to stop, though. She had been very social / confident and her family had some "standing" in the small village we were from. She started drinking and felt like a mess. When she was sober, she felt like people were staring at her like "one of the town drunks". Over a couple of years she basically began to suffer with extreme anxiety to the point that she couldn't set foot outside her house without having a drink first, and even at home, when she wasn't drunk, she started to panic about what a mess everything was. So anxiety leads to more drinking, which lead to her sliding further downhill (she started to look pretty awful after 5 or so years) which lead to more drinking... ad infinitum until she inevitable killed herself with it.

I don't have any anger at all about it any more. I think how her life panned out is tragic, really. I was barely affected by her death, because I emotionally cut off that connection over a decade ago... and that itself is tragic, because she never did.


ANYWAY... err... now that I've finished sharing my life story... the point is, I just don't feel like I used to about addicts any more. I feel awful for them. I wonder what happened in their past, or why their present is so miserable, that they have to dull it with substance abuse. The ones who proudly announce that they have no intention of stopping - I just feel bad for them. It definitely is bravado. It's pretending that there's some element of control when they know full well that they have none... that they're on a hurtling train with no breaks heading for a broken track next to a cliff.

No one would choose that life... if they truly had the choice.