Some of you are aware that for the last two days I've been at my daughters 3rd year hen do reunion which has been fun in away but concerning at the same time!
Over many years I've noticed my daughters best friend from university who I also class as my tendy step daughter and love to bits now has a drink problem which I can see that she's not aware of.
These last two days she's talked about various things but most of all what time are we having a drink plus most conversations in someway have related back to earlier alcohol consumption she's had with hubby,friends or with family which has been horrid to listen to. I see that she's so happy talking about other future upcoming events that included alcohol!!!!
Before coming to bed last night her last words to me where, 'roll on September when you see your Liver Consultant and hopefully get the all clear then we can get drunk and sort numerous dates out to get (drunk )which I'd like to point out I've only ever done 3 times in my life time.😁. This comment of hers was also mentioned numerous times whilst together which made me feel like in someway I may have spoilt her weekend as I only drank two alcoholic drinks all the time together.
Without sounding horrid about someone I love very much, she's so proud to boost on FB the amount of alcohol she's drinks which I hate to see!
She's aware of my contact with the British Liver foundation Trust Forum and I've made her aware of how many of you have under gone a TP due to alcohol or those of you under going treatment for none alcoholic related liver issues, so she's aware of my concerns for you all!!!! Note this subject was only mentioned once!
I was going to ask for advice on how or what if anything I can do to point my daughters best friend, my tendy step daughter back onto a better path of life, however I'm thinking there's nothing without offending both my daughter and tendy daughter.
Hi Trish. This is a difficult one! She is having what she considers to be a great time. She is young and enjoying life and liver problems are something that happen to other people. There is not enough information out there to make people stop and think twice about alcohol, generally it's associated with socialising and a good time or relaxing and chilling out. They see some people that have drunk alcohol all their lives and are fine so will think, what's the problem? It's the culture of binge drinking and regular drinking that is one of the main problems along with obesity that is going to increase liver problems and transplants in the future. It's hard for the younger generation to see this. Of all the people I know and know of in my life (not counting the BLT Forum) I am the only one to have had a liver transplant, so it's not as though they are bumping into transplantees on a regular basis. It's usually only when a problem begins with their liver that people become aware of all these issues. She knows of your problems and that has had no affect on her and so all that I can suggest is that you somehow get her to read the posts on this forum so that she can see some of the dangers for herself. She could be one of the lucky ones that can drink to excess all their lives without problems ( I have a Brother-in-law like this, now in his 70's. has been tested and his liver was absolutely fine) but these people as you and I are aware are in the minority. So Good luck with that one Trish, I hope that you are successful in making her more aware of what she could be storing up for the future. Very best wishes from Alf. AKA The gardener
Firstly apologies for late reply! My morning stroll with daughter was delayed slightly which ended up being an 8 mile walk along the canal with the whole family, a much longer in distance than planned! However I was a happy bunny as I burnt off a further 620 calories🤗.
Secondly, I want to thank you Alf and everyone of you for your wonderful advice, private messages, website links and concern for my tendy daughters drinking problem which I woke up thinking about first thing this morning at 5am.
Some of you are not aware that my tendy daughter left my daughters home early this morning as she had musical concert rehersal to perform at 10am thus leaving me no time to even approach the alcohol subject in a gently way before we said our goodbyes with hugs and a kiss!
After my afternoons walk I received a text message from tendy daughter with photo ! Yes, it was a photo of a pint of larger with a smiley face incon which meant the start of her afternoons entertainment! Errrrrrr I thought as this photo had spoilt my afternoon! I showed the phototo my daughter who made no comment but understood my reason deep down!
Some of you have made comments about the alcohol /gin bars etc becoming social places for most of the younger generation to go to these days which I must admit is correct! Others of you raised the subject that in 20 years time the NHS will not be able to cope with the increase in Liver diseases which again I deeply agree with! I'm also presuming in 20 years time there maybe a shortage of healthy livers for TP's !!!.
As most of you are now aware I'm hoping to do a Sky Dive to raise funds for the trust and the QE Hospital in Birmingham should I get medical approval from my GP on the 1st of July ! If its granted then I'm possibily aiming to do the jump at end of July/August !
I was thinking that the only way I can tackle my tendy daughters problem without directly approaching her would be to announce /advertise my Sky Dive on FB plus approach the local news paper to see if they would run a story. I could maybe raise further funds this way but at the same time highlight with your help and advice how easy it is to become addictive to alcohol thus leading to possibly future liver problems! This would only not be read by tendy daughter but others too!
Please let me know your thoughts and disagreements or advice on the above! Note! Theres no rush to reply!
Well may I wish everyone of you a 'Huge Thank You ' for being here for me once again ! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Love from me to you , your loved ones, families and friends! Xxx
Trish
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Excellent idea Trish. Anything you can put out there which she will see is hopefully going to help
Good Morning Gardener 😆! I'm.guessing you wont be doing much gardening today after all of last nights horrid rain with more of it to come over the week ahead😔😔😔!
Re your earlier reply! I forgot to mention that I did take on board every single word you wrote and agree that there are some who can drink quite alot of alcohol without causing damage or illness to themselves. However I do believe if your life is surrounded by drinkers in every direction then its definately going to be harder to change your own lifestyle. I'm speaking from experience on this point! My parents, my ex husbands parents, my ex husband my brother, my sister were all heavy drinkers and all but one are no longer here! Some died from cirrhosis of the liver, heart attacks and mulipal cancers which was not nice to watch. Even my very best friend who was a Director of Nursing who I tried my very best to save numerous times from the dreaded sins of alcohol eventually died about 25 years ago!!!! This was total agony for me to watch back then after nursing various family members with cancer.
To be honest being around all of the above has now made me who I am today, a stronger person over all who just wants to grab life by it Balls!!!! 🏐🏐Apologises for the crude remark! 😆😆😆 I just want to make others happy if I can even when there having a shitty day! I'm not saying I'm perfect as theres not such a person🤣🤣 but I'll try my best to help and cheer someones day up if possible. On an occasion I screwed up but not intentionally and have learnt that lesson!
Well Alf and to those reading ! Have a pleasant day and grab some Balls! 🤣🤣🤣🤣 Joking......
Hi Trish. Very right, no gardening today. Looks like a indoor hobbies day. Yes, I totally agree with what you are saying about alcohol. I know of many people over the years that have drunk too much and too often and they are no longer here to tell the tale. It's a hard message to get across to younger people who consider that they are having a great time. You will often hear people say things like I had an uncle that drank every day of his life and lived to 99 or AuntL lucy smoked 40 a day for 60 years and it never did her any harm! These are the examples that people will look to when they want the excuse to continue having that "good time" and not to the thousands that didn't survive the drinking every day or the smoking. If adverts for alcohol on TV were to be replaced by short interviews with people that are suffering from illness as a result of drinking alcohol to excess as a warning then that might do a lot of good, but I can't see that happening any time soon. I was part of a research trial. Part of the trial was to try and find out why through lifestyle some people can drink to excess and suffer no health problems with their liver and others can drink virtually no alcohol and have major liver problems. I was diagnosed with NASH and then HCC. Through this research my Brother in law got what was referred to as his free liver MOT. He admitted that he had drunk to way, way over excess for over 50 years and so they examined his liver. He had a nice soft liver with no problems. so he was one of those rare exceptions to the rule. Sorry that I was so long in reply. I had a big day yesterday. We had a party for my grandsons 1st birthday. It was an emotional day. I had bought him a special present months before he was born because I was not expecting to be here to give it to him on his birthday. So it can rain all it likes today because life life is wonderful
As I'm currently still at my daughters who now at work I've decided as I cannot get to the gym I'm going to have an internal day of ironing all of my son-in-laws shirts and whatever else is lying about as you know I cannot sit still for long. 😂😂😂.
I must say your message above brought a we tear to my heart when you said you didnt expect to be hear for your grandsons birthday Sunday which I thought was Friday, hence my slice of cake comment! 😁
You may have noticed I was going to give my fingers a rest but when your message popped up I just found myself replying now as you've always been here for me from the start along with Pilomilo!
Anyway are you and wifey both doing your hobbies together? You can PM sometime on that point! There's no rush, just remember to say hi from me again !!!
I'll write again soon but for now I must drag whatever huge pile of clothes are waiting to be ironed from there hiding places😂😂😂
Tomorrow home after pub quizz tonight which my daughter has requested our presence at, hence still here! Then granddaughter sitting Tuesday and Wednesday!
How about sending her to this site? It certainly opened my eyes and helped me cut down and eventually stop drinking,
I did some bedtime reading about the UK government’s 14 unit limit recommendation as I was curious if this figure had any significance or was arbitrary. It certainly made grim reading but focuses more on cancer risks.
Someone drinking over 35 units a week, which sounds like her levels, has double the risk of breast cancer and a 1 in 17 chance of developing oesophageal cancer) compared to 1 in 166 for a non drinker). The NHS website gives a 15% survival rate over 5 years for this cancer.
Everyone knows someone who has or had cancer, and if more heavy drinkers knew that last statistic above, that’d be a good enough reason to cut down or stop.
Thank you for yesterday's note which I did appreciate very much. I think I'm also going to try a make a heartily joke to tendy daughter about her recent photo and hopefully she'll take this as a gentle hint of my concern to start with.
Have a good Monday ! Love Trish x
Hi Alf
Cheers for message! 😁I'll reply when I get back from walk along the canal with daughter which I'm about to go on shortly! Enjoy the few hours of dry weather ! 🏃♀️🏃♀️🏃♀️🏃♀️🏃♀️🏃♀️🏃♀️🏃♀️signing off 😁
What you have described is very typical of life today young people think drinking is harmless and fun you go into any petrol station or supermarket and its there in your face wine beer spirits . People do not know about the hidden dangers your pouring poision into your body damaging your internal organs ciggarettes were banned from tv adds and now from sight in shops more needs to be done to warn people .on my face book there is not a day goes by that one of my middle aged facebook freinds isnt bragging up where they have been or where they are going next to drink the latest craft gin or something equally as toxic.any person who goes on the british liver trust forum and finds out the sad truth about alcohol and the damage it does to your liver would run 20 miles before they would drink again . What you have described is becoming normal these days and its terrible .if your daughters freind was to maybe watch some of the programmes that have been on tv about drinking maybe she might understand the danger .its not easy warning people because they think its normal you must try somehow to get the message to her before she harms herself .as one liver consultant said on TV if something is not done soon the nhs is going to face an epidemic in 20yrs time they are not going to cope with .its a devastating time bomb .
I now want to thank you personally for your note of yesterday which I really did take on board like Alf's Coco and others in depth replies. It's definately becoming an increased BAD socialable way some of the younger generation are heading and only by highlighting this major problem now do they stand a chance of avoiding Liver or other medical issues down the line!
Again thank you for sparing time to write to me on a Sunday
I hope someone on here has some good advice for you, as I don't.
Once I left college, I pretty much left drinking behind, in part possibly because I had an Aunt who was a drinker and I saw how upset it made my Mother and partly because my Father had no problem talking about alcoholism in his family & my Mom's and how it can sneak up on people.
I do hope you get some good advice, because from me all I can see is just voicing concern in as tactful a way as possible and not doing it often - with the hope it won't fall on deaf ears.
Best wishes,
Mary
Hi
This must be so hard for you watching this young lady drink as she does. As someone else said, maybe direct her to this forum. Could you get your daughter on board with this, she might listen to her. Love and hugs Lynne xxxx
Hi Trish, I agree with what has been said already. I think Lynne has got it right. Young people will normally listen to their peers more than older people. The hard line probably won't work, but should come from her family. My daughter over from Seattle just now is in the work hard,play hard generation, and she with her friends have this boozy culture. Even though she is well aware of my cirrhosis, and it's cause, she will not listen to my advice, and continues with her lifestyle. "It'll never happen to me" syndrome. My heart to heart with my daughter didn't work, so sorry, I don't really have a solution for you.
Your words are so correct on every level. My situation is exactly the same as yours except I do not have cirrhosis! However my daughter is aware of my health issue's and of my friends on this forum! I've now come to realise over this weekend that nothing I do is ever going to change the way they live there lives ! I just don't want to be around to watch MY family suffer should it ever happen ! I now think it's time for less of this shitty morbid stuff! Do you agree😆😆😆?
Shame we cannot arrange a members forum party as I think we could all do with one ☺️☺️☺️☺️ xxx
I totally agree Trish, we should try not to worry about things that we have can't change, and concentrate on things we can. A meet up would be good for us all here, but HE stops me from driving just now. I could use my OAP bus pass though🤣🤣🤣🚌
Hi Trish, sadly I don't think there's much you can do to stop her having these binge drink sessions.
My husband didn't drink like this, he was a habitual drinker, drank from about 6pm to wind down - about 4 cans of beer/bottle of wine every day with very little break. Until he ended up vomiting blood & being diagnosed with cirrhosis we had no clue he had damaged his liver. If he had known he would have stopped much earlier but there were no obvious warning signs. I knew his drinking habits weren't good but I didn't think he would end up slap bang with cirrhosis at 45 years old (still feel like its a bad dream). Yet, even though people know what's happened to him, we're still surrounded by people who binge drink fairly regularly. My brother, his sister (who's thrown up through drink since his diagnosis). One of my husband's best friends growing up died of cirrhosis (he didn't ever stop drinking) & his sister posted on FB recently how she'd had so much prosecco she'd been throwing up all night & thought she was going to die of alcohol poisoning (she was joking about it!).
It's like smoking, the warnings are there but people block them out & think it will happen to other people, not them. I think all you can do for your daughter's friend is tell her some stories on here & remind her that the guidelines (recommended units, having a break between drinking etc) are there for a reason. I don't think its neccessary to go tee-total but people really need to be more sensible. It's nice that you care so much about her x
Well what can I say to your in depth lovely reply other than you understand exactly how I feel!
Your story about your husbands drinking binges I can relate to as my ex did the same except he drank larger followed by whisky. The sad thing was he had he's 1st heart attack at 24 which wasn't picked up until in his late 30's followed by a quadruple heart by pass.
Two weeks after full open surgery and being at home whilst I was at work, he sneaked out, drove my car and brought 2 bottles of whisky which he was drinking when I got home! Chest all pinned up with staples too! 9 months later he had a coronary and became a disability case!
Anyway I understand how your feeling too and will always be here if you ever need someone!
Now let's try and cheer everyone up somehow ! 😜😜😜😛😝🤑🤒🥶😱😰🤪🤪🤪
Trish, I was the trendy, well step son in this case. Now I’m 45 now but from the time I was 15 I was out partying and drinking every weekend. Then you had the whole acid house scene, late 80s- early 90’s. And to be honest it never really stopped until a few years ago, when I came very close to the end, which was quite sudden. When I was younger I would be exactly the same. Where’s the next party, let’s go away for a few weeks and get hammered. All the while every job I had, had a very active social aspect to it. Nobody could have or tried to stop me. Everything that could go wrong would happen to someone else, never me.
Until it was actually me!!! I’d lost friends in various ways but as long as o was ok it was always going to be fine right up until it isn’t.
Being totally honest, and it’s a hard thing to say, would I have ever stopped of my own accord?? Probably not. Nobody ever said to me I had an issue. The only person who stopped me drinking was me and that was only because I’d become so bored of it, but after a few months, I’d go back to it.
I feel so hypocritical at times saying to people not to drink so I try not to. I just don’t involve myself in the same circles any more. I’m not having people using the whole, well you did it excuse on me.
Sorry side tracked.
It’s hard to try and get people to understand what it actually does to your body. If the worst thing that happens is a sore head and dehydration a bit then what’s the harm?? Trying to explain what it actually does to your body is so hard because they don’t see it. My daughter came to see me shortly after I came round the first time and having her there with 20 other people on the ward of various conditions seemed to make her see that it isn’t worth it. If I’m trying to explain to someone about alcohol, it’s trying to get them to see that every time they are out getting hammered, to me, it’s the same as sitting beside your best friends whilst they have a needle in their arm. Problem is, that one is socially acceptable and one isn’t. When you take it straight down to the bones of it, one just takes longer to kill you than the other.
Sorry for rambling on but your in such a difficult position, to see something that’s not good for someone but they don’t see it is such. It’s such a hard thing to get right
I don’t know what the answer is and hopefully you can manage to help the situation. I really do. I wouldn’t wish anyone to go through what most people on here have gone through. The only thing I could suggest is for you just to be as strong as you can and be there for them. It might take time but knowing that they have you in the corner trying to help them should help even if there is some pain in the short term.
I really hope it all works out for you, perhaps not today but in the long run and they can stop and see things how they really are. What was that quote again “ youth is wasted on the young”? Something like that anyway. Good luck.
I must say your well written note does explain some of our younger society of today and is very sad in away to think about. Unfortunately I see a lot of this going on around me as I'm a social but sensible mum who still gets invited out with my daughters and sons friends and I see the harm some are doing to themselves! Your right you cannot interfere as only they can make that decision to stop drinking or cut down!
Yesterday I replied to my tendy daughters text message, the photo of a pint of larger which she would have drunk loads of! Anyway I know she loves Ironbrew so I replied with a photo of a bottle of Ironbrew with a comment ' This is much nicer for your Liver ' which she'd understand ! However I know fizzy pop is awful and not good for you but its pop and not booze! I received no reply!!!
However daughter drank tonic last night whilst as the local pub quizz, so i think she took note of my joint message.
Well I think it's now time to end all correspondence on this thread for now but would still like to hear from you again!,
Please take care and again thank you for sharing your story and look forward to following you .
Good luck
Trish
Some cheerful news that I just wanted to share with my friends. My new 'Pet Service' business received it's first order tonight and i wanted you to be the first to know!!!!
Tendy daughter was drinking more ironbrew yesterday ! 😁
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