Just lost another friend to alcoholism

[FollowTheSun]

About 3 years ago I lost a dear friend to alcoholic liver disease. He had been clean and sober for years, but the damage was done. My last good memory of him was going to his house and having him show me how to make pie crust. He was a good cook, and even then, as a nurse, I could tell he was dying. He never wanted to believe that, and he was hoping for a liver transplant until the very end. The last time I saw him, he was on full life support measures and we were taking turns holding his hand and saying goodbye. He squeezed my hand back.

And then today I found out another dear friend just passed away. She was my best friend, we had a deep connection like two long-lost sisters. I knew she had a drinking past, but then started to see the signs of heavy drinking again. She totally denied it, even when me and her partner had an intervention with her-- even after he had found and been tracking her stash and seeing the alarming rate at which she drank the hard stuff. It broke my heart but I had to let go of her and walk away, as long as she was in denial. I walked away from our entire friend/social group because it was an enabling environment. Her partner also broke up with her after 7 years together.

The last time I saw her was about a year ago. She was in 12 steps and she asked me to lunch so she could "make amends" with me, as one of the steps. I was glad to see her, but during the lunch I noticed her hand tremors were so bad she could hardly drink from her glass of ice tea. I wondered (as a nurse) if she was really clean for 100 days as she said she was. It looked more like just a few hours to me. But I didn't say anything, I hugged her and wished her well.

My partner, the love of my life, also ruined his health due to alcoholism. He was a high functioning alcoholic, until he was hospitalized twice for alcohol poisoning, and nearly bled out twice due to esophageal varicies. The second time that happened I had just been dating him a few months, was deeply in love, and pledged to stay with him even if that meant not a very long time left. I never knew him as a drinker-- he had become clean and sober about 6 months before we met, but was still having the health problems from it. He ended up getting himself on the liver transplant list, it was that bad. About a year after that though, his liver had healed enough that he was stable, and looking great. He will always have cirrhosis and fatty liver, but because he's stopped drinking *and* smoking *and* doing pot the last 3.5 years, his health has stabilized. We are getting formally married in early January. We are having a baby in mid-January. :-) He is an amazing step-father to my two teen daughters, and an amazing partner. I'm sooooo glad he turned his life around in time.

I wish, as a human being and as a hospice nurse, that people would see the danger of drinking, and treat it as seriously as they do hard drugs and marijuana. It see sooooo many young to middle-aged people dying on my watch due to end stage alcoholic liver disease. It's an awful awful death, too. Much worse than cancer, heart failure, etc. It's just ugly and really hard.

I see fellow moms drinking wine at playgroups. I see people drinking to relax after a hard day at work. I see people getting hammered at football parties and birthday parties and weddings. Why do we need to do this? Why not just have a good time, and learn to cope with stress in other ways that cause personal growth, rather than drowning our troubles in booze?

Anyway . . thanks for listening. I'm just mourning my friend today and being mad at the senselessness of it all.