Drink? Lose A Leg.

[bainbrig]

I was an alcoholic for over 20 years, and finally climbed out of the bottle on 6th December 2002. (True alkies ALWAYS know precisely when they had their last drink!)

I’d tried many times over the years, having ‘no drink’ days, etc., but nothing worked apart from total abstinence.

Anyway, in 2002 I was chuffed to pieces, I’d done it! Waking up feeling good, lost stones in weight, walking, feeling great.

Walking across a manicured Kew Gardens lawn, trod on a small stone, felt a slight discomfort, walked on.

With a broken ankle.

One consequence of long-term drinking is peripheral neuropathy - loss of nerve sensations in fingers - and feet. I felt no great pain in the ankle, just discomfort, and walked on, for six months, until my foot was pointing the wrong way.

The x-ray doctor (when I finally got to one) shook his head. Mr Singh, an eminent bone consultant, shook his. Result: amputation below the knee.

My ideas about peaceful retirement years were somewhat altered, but at least I know who is to blame for my troubles (me).

And like all you drinkers, I thought I might damage my liver through my boozing - but not lose a leg! Stop thinking about giving up, and just give up!

With affection,

BillB

[Zacs-Master]

Crikey, BB, that's a sad story.

Have you tried using it to counsel others at an AA meeting or Similar? The shock of you lifting your trouser leg might work!

[Smowball]

That’s incredibly sad and unfair.

[bainbrig]

No to both Zacs.

No it’s not sad - most 30-units-plus a day drinkers die; I just lost a leg, and I’m happy with life. And no-one was forcing me to drink.

No, never been to an AA meeting, but the thing about kicking an addiction is that it’s got to be an INTERNAL decision - no amount of advice (or empty trouser legs) has any effect.

BB

[Zacs-Master]

OK, just thought it might just spur someone on to make that decision for themselves. You have a powerful story with a physical disability to show for it and that's a powerful thing.

[KARL]

Wow, what courage. Thank you for putting your post out.

Mind you, I'll bet that if not you yourself you at least know lots of people (yes, women too) who are (or were if they have stopped) in complete denial. You made the decision to stop, good for you, congratulations - I am aware this is something lots of excessive drinkers never achieve, to their continuing detriment. I know someone who arrived at the decision approx. 50 years ago when he woke up in hospital after running drunk from the police (for what reason I don't know) and fell into a deep building site excavation following heavily shouldering a door on one of these plywood boundary walls.

Something else: "Likes a drink" is something people call those who are in reality alcoholics, they don't ever go through 24 hours without drinking, they usually have one in the morning to stabilise themselves from the DTs. Call an alcoholic an alcoholic - he/she will be furious and deny it, but they are. Have you now completely stopped, never a drink ? That is what my above friend did, convinced that if he ever had one again there would be more, lots more.

[ummmm]

Did you go cold turkey? Isn't that quite dangerous?

[mallyh]

i'm sorry to hear about your leg, but you have given me hope for my son ,thankyou for being so open about your life. xx

[KARL]

The later posts appeared while I was typing: I completely agree with you, it is only when the addict him/herself decides that this has to stop that there is any hope for it to happen. I have another friend who was heavily into drugs, she went repeatedly to rehab urged by her parents and always relapsed. Then, as she herself describes it, she simply decided she could not continue living like this. She went back to her parents and asked them to finance yet another rehab - to their credit they did. She didn't complete the scheme (because she found some of the mental exercises infantile) but she never went back to drugs. That was some 30 years ago, I believe.

I have an alcoholic son in his fifties who will not speak to me because he became so furious when I said he needed to examine and solve his drinking habit. He tells others I described him as an alcoholic and worse - completely untrue but people tell me that he is in this describing his own view of himself. I suspect there are those among my relatives and close acquaintances who criticise me for leaving him alone saying he has to make his own decision on this, nothing I can or should do until then. He knows perfectly well what I said and how I feel, he is certainly no idiot.

Again, well done, I admire you.

[-SharonA-]

Sad story, but glad you are reasonably happy now.

[hc4361]

Diabetics, all types, can lose their limb(s) for the same reason. Obese Type 2s who eat all the wrong food need to be very aware of this, too.

[bainbrig]

Thanks for the entirely unwarranted compliments. I drank because I enjoyed it, no thought for the effect it was having on other people (or my body, or bank balance) - I don't know about cold turkey, although I know it is a real problem for 'proper' drug addicts. I've heard it spoken of for alcoholics, but it seems a bit vague - so no, I didn't suffer from it, just the pangs of unfulfilled desire for another bottle!

In the end, I was becoming incontinent, and although I still managed to lapse into unconsciousness through drink, didn't get much of that 'buzz' a few drinks used to give me. I was just lucky, in that I looked at myself, didn't like what I saw, and ...

I think there are 'switches' deep in your mind, labelled things like 'stop eating', 'stop drinking', 'stop smoking', and so on. I once found the one for eating, but lost it again over the years.

Smoking WAS difficult. Drink, I found, was far more in the mind than a physical addiction like nicotine, and once I'd found the switch marked 'drink', it was (relatively) easy.

Zacs: point taken. Maybe Answerbank is my substitute for AA - somewhere I can expose myself to strangers and hope, Ancient Mariner-like, my tale will be heard.

BB

[anneasquith]

I’m interested B if your first attempt at sobriety worked, or did it take many attempts . Well done .

[hc4361]

Anne, he said:

I’d tried many times over the years, having ‘no drink’ days, etc., but nothing worked apart from total abstinence.

[anneasquith]

Indeed he did hc. Must try harder .

[teacake44]

And this is why I get really mad when one particular supermarket ( Morrisons) will always promote bottles of spirit on TV every time we have a bank holiday, or consider its BQ weather. Good luck.

[ummmm]

Why, teacake? That's life, alcoholics/ ex alcoholics have to get used to it.

[Cloverjo]

Thanks for telling us that, bainbrig. Well done to you.

[teacake44]

Silence is the best response to a fool. ^^

[teacake44]

ummmm ^

[tamborine]

Congratulations for giving up & strength of character BB.

My OH died of cirrhosis & I know the distress to a family of an alcoholic.