How does someone "drink themselves to death"?

Basically that turn of phrase means he generally ran his health into the ground with booze being a major contributing factor.

Destroy the liver.

It could mean either, or (and most often) what R1 said. It can be said that Amy Winehouse drank herself to death, though the coroner ruled it was an OD, not a longer-term chronic liver/organ failure.

Yes, you can destroy your liver by the age of 30. Other liver related diseases could make you sick enough to die...so it's easy to think a person of 30, drank themselves to death.

That is so sad. I really feel bad for people like that.

I think it takes much longer than age 30. More like 50 or 60.

Grace Metalious, author of [italic]Peyton Place,[/italic] died of cirrhosis at 39 after years of alcoholism.

R5 is a creep.

As noted, you either drink yourself to death slow or fast. Slow is waiting for primary damage to combine with secondary effect.

Primary? Cirrhosis and then esophageal varices, so you die choking on your own blood pouring out of your tissue-thin throat and exploding arteries.

Secondary? damage can be effects of malnutrition (alcoholics often quit eating), diabetes, hypertension, cancer of various sites (including liver). Plus alcoholics at this end of the spectrum also often are doing other things - smoking, drugging, taking risks, driving drunk. Bam into a bridge post is one way to drink oneself to death.

Fast is alcohol poisoning. Not just the stuff of hazing and high school partying with no one putting the skids on. It's ugly. And there also are secondary effects that can be fatal here, if being blotto with a 12.5 blood alcohol level doesn't do it. Such as passing out and choking to death on one's vomit.

R5 is a creep because it's the "so sad" bullshit troll who offers nothing to anything here except a spineless blob of "be nice" and "why are there so many gay people here".

A guy I know developed a heart arrythmia from heavy drinking after 9/11 (lost his girlfriend). Doctors told him to stop or at least cut back drinking, he didn't and was dead in less than 10 years. He was 32.

R8 I'm a creep for having empathy? I'm a creep for feeling bad for a young person who died? Wow. I really feel sorry for you. It must suck being so bitter and cynical.

R8 really missed the mark with criticizing R5.

Watch Leaving Las Vegas OP.

My Aunt was drinking Listerene, vanilla extract, anything that contained alcohol. Yes, she drank herself to death.

Alcohol, like any other drug, is highly addictive for some people.

You're all very interesting, but I think OP was looking for [italic]instructions[/italic].

A&E's Intervention had two shows about male alcoholics in their 30's who could not stop drinking. At the end of each show, the postscript said that each man had died from alcohol-related organ failure.

We hear constantly about the deadly effects of smoking, but not so much drinking. It amazes me how truly ignorant some people are about how deadly drinking can be - it's just as deadly as smoking, and tends to kill you at a younger age than tobacco can.

It's actually worse than smoking because a) alcohol addiction is hereditary and b) it's a mood changer, unlike smoking. I mean smoking may calm someone down but we all know what alcohol does to people. I would much rather someone I love be addicted to cigarettes than alcohol. They're both going to kill you eventually but death by alcohol is not pretty.

Let me clarify ...what I meant is, if I had to choose between cigarettes and alcohol it would be cigarettes. They are both nasty habits for sure and I wouldn't want someone I love to die from either addiction but alcohol is far worse and also much harder to quit. I once smoked (for about 8 years) but was able to quit. Alcoholism destroys many lives.

William Holden was so drunk he passed out and hit his head on the corner of a table and bled to death.

Alcohol poisoning, which is what killed Amy Winehouse. It also does damage to the liver over a period of excessive drinking. You can drink yourself to death in more ways than one.

I heard about an alcoholic that suffered from dehydration and was diagnosed with kidney failure and died. Last few weeks of his life, he drank a la Nick Cage in Leaving Las Vegas.

My sister had a friend, a creep who tried to rape me twice, who had a ruptured esophagus. He was going to have to stop drinking for yet more surgery. He decided he didn't want it so he locked himself in a room and drank. Took about three days before he died.

My sister was shocked!!! I danced a little jig.

My mother's second husband was a hopeless alcoholic redneck. He would start drinking at five in the morning, and continue drinking all throughout the day. He'd drink until evening and then it would appear he'd pass out rather than sleep. He got gout in his early twenties. He kept alcohol in his car; he'd swill it while he was driving. He was absolutely unwilling to stop drinking, never even tried to. He died at age 48 from cancer (alcoholics are more susceptible to cancer than people who aren't heavy drinkers). I think it could rightly be said that he drank himself to death. Good riddance. He was a total asshole.

Alcohol is the only drug which is absorbed by and damages every organ of the body.

And...it is the only drug that one can die during withdrawal.

Everyone knows about cirrhosis, but it doesn't look like anyone's mentioned Pancreatitis. That's what got my brother, who by coincidence also drank himself to death at 33. In addition to the booze, he was ingesting overdose levels of calcium, popping Tums to deal with the heartburn. I know it sounds strange to OD on Tums, but in his case that was basically all he was eating.

We'll never know if he was deliberately choosing a slow, painful and inefficient method of suicide (like in Leaving Las Vegas), or if he bottomed out and death was the side effect.

That is not true R25. You can die in withdrawal of benzos and opiates as well.

Bix Beiderbecke died at 28 from alcoholism.

R27, I stand corrected!

You can do it (drink youreself to death) in one night. I know someone who did.

Thanks so much for this thread guys. As somebody keenly pursuing the advanced stages of this process, all I want say is you rock! :)

A friend of my boyfriend's just died two days ago, he drank himself to death. He had been drinking steadily for a few months. His family said that the past week he quit talking and was falling down all the time. Sunday morning his daughter went to check on him and he was dead. His family was going to take him to the hospital that morning. There are more than a few ways to die from drinking alcohol. It's a terrible disease.

I am a recovering alcoholic, sober 18 years now. I drank 12-18 beers every single night. This year, I have been diagnosed with early-onset dementia, and I am feeling its signs at the age of 55. My doctors say the most likely catalyst was the alcohol, even 18 years later.

So, it runs the gamut, from high school students choking on their own vomit, to people who never stop drinking and destroy their livers, to people like me whose health and lifespan have likely been compromised by the effects of alcohol.

Yes, you can drink yourself to death.

You sound like a psycho r22. Too bad he wasn't successful in raping you.

R34 What the hell is wrong with you? "Too bad he wasn't successful in raping you." What a horrible thing to say. So R22 wasn't exactly grief-stricken when their would-be rapist finally removed himself from this life, that does not make them a "psycho". R34 - DL's own Travis Bickle.

is it safe to drink a bottle of wine or two once or twice a week?

.

R36 How big is the bottle?

A doctor told the fiancee of a co-worker that if he didn't stop drinking 24/7, he'd be dead by the age of thirty. He died at age thirty-one.

My dad had alcoholic dementia and was diagnosed at 65. He had been sober for four years & was a binge drinker. It is a truly soul destroying disease and he ended up taking his life.

Richard Burton was just 58 when he died from an alcohol-related stroke. He also had cirrhosis for about 3 years before his death, yet he couldn't stop drinking.

Drinking will damage the heart, weakens the heart muscles, damages the coronary arteries. Damage the liver. The liver filters toxins, excessive alcohol will cause the cells in the liver to die and create a fatty liver, a damaged liver will send toxins into the blood stream, and also cause loss of weight due to loss of digestive function. Cirhosis will affect the kidney function also. You will get gout, excessive uric acid in the blood. The body can only handle so much damage, excessive abuse will shut all major organs down.

My brother-in-law drank himself to death. Officially, it was heart failure. He also had developed (alcohol related) diabetes and had to wear a leg cast for years, I believe it was. I think they amputated part of his leg in the last weeks of his life. He was 49, and I miss him.

I am not much of a drinker but it is hard for me to get drunk. I found out why from my dentist. Novacaine only works on me for a short time. He asked me if I was of Irish background. I have something called an over metabolizing liver. It is common in people of Irish decent. I can get buzzed but rarely act drunk because the alcohol goes through my system quickly. The one time I actually tried to drink myself drunk, in my youth, I ended up passing out and vomiting in my sleep. People with my condition can actually drink themselves to the point of blood toxicity and die from alcohol poisoning.

Jon Bonham of Led Zepplin asphyxiated after massive bout of alcohol ingestion, age 32.

Hank Williams died of heart failure related to alcoholism, age 29.

The massive quantities some folks drink during their binges is what is most dangerous and damaging to multiple organs.

Here in the Netherlands (and Britain as well) teenagers regularly drink themselves into a coma and people seem to laugh it off, but when one dumb tourist freaks out after a bad magic mushroom trip (they were legal here for a while), moral panic ensues and magic mushrooms are instantly banned.

Really sad stories in this thread.

It can either mean destroying your liver and other health concerns related to massive alcohol consumption, or dying of alcohol poisoning after drinking too much in one sitting.

I like to drink a couple of bottles of wine over the course of an evening a couple of times a month. Is that bad?

[quote] R36: is it safe to drink a bottle of wine or two once or twice a week?

Hi, R36, if you are still out there. This sounds like alcoholism to me. I don’t think you’ll drop dead in one night, but if you’re still drinking today, I suspect you are drinking more, and more often, now.

Every person is different. Your habit would kill some people, and not much-affect the health of others.

It could mean either, or (and most often) what [R1] said. It can be said that Amy Winehouse drank herself to death, though the coroner ruled it was an OD, not a longer-term chronic liver/organ failure."

Amy Winehouse died of acute alcohol poisoning. She drank so much alcohol that she went into respiratory depression due to aspirated vomit. This is not a pretty death.

In my experience happy well-adjusted people don't enjoy getting blitzed out of their minds.

Alcoholism can destroy your body fairly rapidly if you are drinking hardcore. It killed my aunt at 39. She drank a fifth of vodka a night, plus beers in-between. My uncle came home and found her unconscious one day, and upon taking her to the hospital, they discovered her liver was failing. After that it was a domino effect, and her organs shut down one by one over the next 24 hours until she died.

R52 Who are these happy well-adjusted people you speak of?

r50 you sound ridiculous. Even drinking 4 bottles of wine over the course of a week is considered very safe. 16 drinks is just over 2 drinks per day.

R55, not if he’s binging home alone, which is what I understood. And two bottles in a single night? R36 didn’t give a lot of detail, so I had to work with what I had. But no, it’s not “very safe”. It looks like you are spreading it out over the week, but he’s not.

Its also important to be wary of your family history. If you've had family die of alcohol related events, or you know that it runs in your family and have few relatives make it to 50 you're much MUCH more likely to have premature organ function loss to failure. I lost one uncle in 2 years, he had a 7yr old daughter at the time. He wasn't a real heavy drinker but regularly drinking a few beers plus a shot here and there (for the most part the darker the liquor the worse the damage, atleast to the brain), was enough to kill him in his early 40s BECAUSE our familial DNA is not designed to handle alcohol. They're all English, (grandparents/his parents ) moved to the US after the war, so was an English family new to America.

Although the side of my paternal family that's supposed to be Russian is worse than my mothers in the drinking themselves to death department, my own father died when I was 27, he 54, alcoholic with a massive coronary and that was old for his side.

Another reason alcohol consumption is more dangerous physiologically is the common and flippant use/combined misuse of pharmacological substances with alcohol. I'm not even talking about control substances but NSAIDS, Advil, Ibuprofen, etc. and booze are a fast track to renal/heart failure.

Agreed, R57. Though, it’s practically impossible to tell the son of an alcoholic to “be careful”. It’s such a slowly developing disease for some people, that they don’t see it coming, and when they do, they’re already alcoholics.

R58 You tend to go to one extreme or another in the types of families this effects. You either fall prey to it, or you loathe the behavior that drinking creates and you abhor the habit. Few from sick families go the temperate route, but if recognizing the problem is half the battle educating people who may not get that genetics play a huge part is something.

Ditto R59. I come from a family where alcoholism runs on both sides. My dad is a functioning alcoholic, but an alcoholic no less, and my younger brother (who is now in his mid-twenties) started developing a drinking problem quite young, which has creeped up on him over the years. My mother was raised with a violent, insane alcoholic father, and she went the route of abhorring alcohol and is disgusted by people when they are inebriated. I fortunately inherited her feelings toward it, and have never been interested in drinking. I've had the occasional drink here and there over the years, but it's an extremely rare occurrence—I've never been "drunk, drunk" or had a hangover even.

You can actually simply die of alcohol poisoning. It's not even that rare. The poster calling anyone who drinks a bootle of wine an alcoholic would have a hard time in France. French people drink a fucking lot of wine.

The tough thing with alcohol effects is it’s different for everyone. Some, women especially, are at greater risk of liver disease. But those are likely every day drinkers. Esophageal varies are also more likely to result from constant drinking - and is related to liver issues.

Binge drinkers - who wouldn’t necessarily be identified as alcoholics - have different risks. More heart related. As well as accidents.

Good topic - because “drinking yourself to death” is such a vague and unhelpful term. Lots of scary stories are like the “just say” no approach. More helpful to explain facts. Like someone who drinks a bottle of wine once a week is not drinking themselves to death, But it is a warning sign to pay attention and be cautious of the slippery slope.

R61, it’s a bottle or two a night, twice a week.

Take milk thistle for your liver.

Um, bitches? Some fucktard started this thread SEVEN YEARS AGO. Pay attention, queens!

My uncle drank himself to death. Vomiting blood. His liver exploded. Died alone in his bed.

R66 Good thing he was alone. It would probably have been hard to sleep with all that going on.

Same way people can eat themselves to death.

Have you ever seen Se7en?

r67 It was tragic. He was only 42.

I have a nephew aged 25 who is an alcoholic. Doctors say he will be dead within a year because his liver is so damaged firm alcohol. Now he’s got a slight yellow color to his skin.

I knew a guy who was 26 with yellow skin. I knew he was an alcoholic because of the yellow. He'd been in and out of the hospital 89 times. Sad.

Could also very well include a case of deadly pancreatitis. I have a family friend found dead of this quite recently. He was only fifty-four years-old, but had troubles with drink since his teens. It was found his pancreas was infected, and not sure if it had ruptured as well.

I also knew an alcoholic young lady at university who had been hospitalised repeatedly for this. Her liver enzymes were fine, but they told her at the time if she didn't give up drink she'd be dead. Thirty-three years later, she's still sober and healthy. She was so bad at one point, she'd vomit, and still take another drink. Fatty liver can kill as well. Oft seen as a "precursor" to cirrhosis.

[quote] [R61], it’s a bottle or two a night, twice a week.

R63, if you're asking for opinions, that's problem drinking. It's also expensive. Ask an M.D. (medical doctor) what they think about that amount, that frequency.

Good luck, sincerely.

When I got up to greet my partner before he left for a 9AM meeting and found an empty bottle of wine on the counter...it hit me.

We fought. Brilliant businessman, but haunted by the fact that his family only wanted him for his money. I didn’t want or need it.

I left, and got appendicitis three days later, which nearly killed me and caused him enormous guilt. We reconciled, but he refused to stop drinking. We split again.

Years of back and forth.

Then he still drank himself to death. I tried to be there for him, but he pushed everyone away.

Fucking tragic. I still miss the bastard.

OP -- Here's a link to a current thread that might help answer your question.

R74 I'm sorry for your loss, and continuing pain. I had an older neighbour whom I adored who was quite similar. Disney exec, brilliant, and so successful, he had retired early, and spent the rest of his years slowly killing himself. He was fond of white wine in the AM, in place of tea or coffee.

The wine before a meeting was the “a ha” moment.

I still regret the way I handled it.

Brilliant bastard. His childhood was hellish, so I understand why he was so self destructive, but damn him...

R77 The wine in the morning was my reality check as well. I drink, am in my early fifties, (also retired early) and was too liberal in how I had initially perceived him. I figured he was early sixties, and just over indulged, or binged. I didn't get too preacy on account of his being almost a decade older.

We had contentious on and off periods as well due to his moodiness whilst drinking. When I spent the night at his place, and he offered me wine for breakfast, it was a rude awakening. Even coming from a family fond of drink, I had asked myself "who does this?"... Serious alcoholics was my answer. I too regret how I had handled it. I don't think it's beneficial to go down this road. They would have brought about their demise no matter what we did differently.