Alcohol is a drug.
Withdrawal can be fatal, in and of itself, unlike Heroin, Cocaine, etc. It's nothing to do with availability, it's just a general attitude towards it like it isn't a drug. That and everyone is stupid and doesn't take drugs properly, they use them as social lubricants.
(sorry., Tue 23 Dec 2008, 9:04, 1 reply)

Nope, nobody ever died of stopping drinking alcohol.
Dying's the only thing that stops some people, though.
It's up to them - they can choose to stop, just as any addict can. Plenty do, and get praise for it, notably on here.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Tue 23 Dec 2008, 9:29, closed)

Actually, not quite true.
Taking a serious alcoholic, a truly long-term pickled drunk, and cutting him off completely can be fatal. Some people need to be weaned off of it, or have doctors standing by with drugs to counteract the withdrawal symptoms.

Pretty nasty stuff.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Tue 23 Dec 2008, 13:39, closed)

Well, I could be a pedant here
and point out that even in that case, whatever harm comes to the long-term pickled drunk has come about because of the alcohol abuse itself, rather than because of stopping drinking.

Besides which, it's hard to imagine such a person even trying to stop. I'm thinking of, say, George Best, who didn't stop drinking even after a liver transplant. Tragic.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Tue 23 Dec 2008, 15:06, closed)

...
I probably shouldn't tell this tale, as it's really not mine to tell... but what the hell, this is not likely to be read by those involved.

I knew a man who had a pretty serious substance abuse problem in his youth- I've never gotten the details, but apparently it was some pretty hardcore stuff as he was exposed to Hepatitis C in the process. By the time I met him he had already done jail time for repeat DWI offenses and had a history of quitting or getting fired.

He married a woman whose father had been an alcoholic, and after a time she hectored him into stopping drinking. All seemed well and good, I suppose- except that what she didn't know was that he took to things other than alcohol after that.

He died in his forties of a brain aneurysm that stopped his breathing and his heart long enough to kill most of his brain. Apparently he was taking some form of opiates, overdosed and that triggered the aneurysm.

As I observed in another thread, some people are just plain bound to go to hell in their own way, and there's nothing you can do to stop them.

I do wonder, though, what would have happened if she hadn't hectored him into quitting drinking. Might he still be alive now?
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Tue 23 Dec 2008, 15:19, closed)

To pedant back at you
If someone would continue living (however shortly and poorly) if they continue drinking and die if they stop, it's the stopping that kills them. This regardless of whether this situation is what caused it in the first place.
(Richy_T hundreds if not thousands of dollars, Tue 23 Dec 2008, 15:36, closed)

So the answer is - keep on drinking!
Phew, that's all right then.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Tue 23 Dec 2008, 18:41, closed)