The Diary of a Victim of an Alcoholic

Photo by THEfunkyman What about the good old alcoholic DTs? Jane has certainly suffered those but I have not seen her have all the symptoms of the DTs (delirium tremens). Alcoholic DTs (they can occur for other reasons than through consumption of alcohol) occur when the person stops after a long bout of drinking. In Jane's case this would happen after a particularly heavy binge. And by that I would mean drinking over a bottle of neat vodka a day (sometimes up to 2 bottles per day) for a period of about 7-10 days. She is asleep nearly all the time and wakes up to eat something and drink more vodka. When she stops because she is bored (!) she asks me for some booze (has she stopped?) to ease her off the binge. Coming down from a binge can be very heavy indeed and in the past (much less now) she might spend a full month recovering from a single binge. After stopping for about 12 hours she would sometimes cry out in her sleep; obviously having a terrible nightmare. I would wake her. Ot...

photo by brain_blogger (new window). Jane does not suffer from the classic alcoholic blackout these days or has not had a blackout for about two years. A blackout is when the person cannot remember events during the time he or she was drunk (en bloc blackout - sometimes pieces of information can be recalled). Jane does, though, suffer from general memory loss or it seems to me that her memory is not good and certainly a lot less good than before. As it is a gradual change it goes unrecognised for a long time until one day it dawns on you that your memory sucks (to use an American term). By then it is usually far too late to do anything about it. Apparently there were times in the past when she had an alcoholic blackout but on rare occasions. These days she always binge drinks in bed so no harm can come of her except falling over when going to the toilet or out buying more drink (considerable harm can happen when falling over of course). What I mean is that she doesn't go out to dr...

Phymatous rosacea Alcoholic nose is a red nose and a bulbous nose that we think is associated with consuming excessive amounts of alcohol. The most famous person with such a nose was W.C. Fields. However, it seems that there are three possible processes at work and an alcoholic nose is, in fact, not simply a nose disfigured and reddened by alcohol. Reddening Alcohol causes the blood vessels to dilate (get bigger). This applies to the small capillary blood vessels near the surface of the skin. When dilated the person looks flushed and red. It may be localised. This is an underlying state. Petechiae There may be petechiae on the face. These are red spots on the body including the face that are caused by a minor bleed of a capillary vessel. This may, it seems, be caused by reduced liver function due to a liver damaged by alcoholism. The liver produces clotting factors which help control bleeding. If this function is reduced, minor, harmless, bleeding of capillary vessels may t...

Liver biopsy - Author of work Nephron - published under license. Jane is a long term binge drinker and has no symptoms of alcoholic liver disease. It is thought that binge drinking allows the liver time to recover, while long term chronic drinking of alcohol (near continuous) is the type of alcoholism that causes liver disease. The symptoms of alcoholic liver disease depends on the severity of the disease. There are three types of liver conditions caused by drinking too much alcohol: fatty liver (fat build up in the liver cells) hepatitis (inflammation of the liver) cirrhosis (liver tissue replaced by fibrous - scar - tissue) These conditions can occur at the same time. Fatty liver Alcohol consumption is a common cause of fatty liver. Fat build up occurs within liver cells in a lot of people who regularly drink heavily. It is also known as fatty liver disease (FLD), steatorrhoeic hepatosis, or steatosis hepatitis. The treatment of fatty liver depends on what is causing it, and genera...

For me alcoholism is not a disease. A disease is a illness caused by a malfunctioning body organ due to an infection or genetic or developmental errors (modified dictionary definition). Alcoholism doesn't seem like a disease in a common sense level. It seems to me that this concept was created to allow therapists a "handle" with which to work in treating alcoholics. Did AA create this concept? I don't know. To me alcoholism is at heart a symptom of almost normal human behavior gone wrong. After all, just about everyone drinks alcohol. It's just the ones who can't stop after they have started who become habituated to drinking it.They can't stop because they want more of what makes them feel better, while ignoring the downside. They are keen to feel better because they are people who feel particuarly bad. This may be because they are anxious a lot of the time and that anxiety may be due to low self esteem (acute lack of confidence). A lack of confidence in ...