Drinking to Oblivion

That was the title of a Louis Theroux documentary on the BBC last night.

(If you missed it then do try to catch it on iPlayer).

Louis spent weeks following four alcoholics at the Kings College liver unit. All were gradually killing themselves. Some were closer to death than others.

It was a brilliant, but harrowing, programme.

It would be so easy to look at those people and think that's just not me, but, actually, I found - terrifyingly - that the similarities were, in many ways, greater than the differences.

The popular view of 'alcoholism' is that a small proportion of people have an illness which makes drinking 'normally' impossible for them. For everyone else, drinking is relatively harmless.

This documentary just re-enforced, for me, that this is just not the case. The difference between the heavy drinking 'wine connoisseur' and the low bottom drunk is actually paper thin.

There is no black and white to alcohol addiction, just shades of grey. The one certainty is that it only gets worse, and if you don't quit before it's too late, the Kings College liver unit (or similar) is where you end up.

Louis met Stuart, who was told he had around three months to live, due to cirrhosis of the liver. We saw him having ten litres of vile fluid drained from his distended belly.

Then we saw Joe, who was only thirty two (I think), and was going through a seven day medically supervised detox. Several days in and he still couldn't walk, and was shaking terribly.

Any toxin that can totally destroy people physically in that way cannot possibly be harmless in any quantities.

Another really frightening aspect of the documentary was the way it showed how, little by little, alcohol strips you of everything.

Joe had had a girlfriend, a lively social life, a good job and a lovely flat. He'd lost all of them. He was completely isolated, homeless and unemployed.

But, as their lives became emptier and emptier, there was always something there to fill the gaps - the booze.

Until, eventually, alcohol became their only friend, like the gargantuan cuckoo that pushes everything else out of the nest. And then, the idea of losing the only thing they have left becomes unthinkable.

As one lady said, she'd rather die. And she will.

I watched all of this thinking, sure, that isn't me. But I can see how it could have been.

I didn't have incurable cirrhosis, but I was two stone overweight with a malignant breast tumour.

I didn't need a seven day medical detox to quit, but quitting was still one of the hardest things I've ever done.

I didn't lose my friends, my home  and my job, but my life was gradually becoming emptier and emptier, with booze insidiously filling in all the cracks left behind.

I wasn't there, but I was on the way.

The one thing you really don't want to do is to look at the rock bottom alcoholic and think that's not me, using that as reassurance to carry on (as I'm sure many, many viewers did yesterday as they quaffed their bucket sized glasses of chardonnay).

Because, once you're addicted, it's the way you're heading, and the closer you get, the scarier it is, the more damage you're doing to yourself and your life, and the harder it is to stop.

And here's a salutary tale: lovely Joe had been alcohol free for four and a half years. He said he thought he was older and wiser now. He didn't want to go back to drinking vast amounts, he just wanted to have a glass or two of wine with dinner....

.....but we all know that you don't spend years going gradually back downhill; all it takes is a few drinks and whoompf, you're teleported back to just where you left off, or worse. And within weeks Joe was back in A&E in a poorer state than ever.

(See my post: Relapse Stories)

Interestingly, Louis Theroux, in his interviews with the media about the documentary, confessed to drinking two gin and tonics and three glasses of wine every night.  He also said that at weekends he could easily drink two bottles of wine after lunch.

Now, presuming that those were three fairly large glasses of vino, he's drinking exactly the amount that I was before I quit. And I know that that is not healthy. Mentally or physically.

So please, next time you fancy a quick drink, watch that documentary and - I promise - you won't want to any more...

(On a cheerier note, the new series of Game of Thrones starts tonight! I am beyond excited).

Love SM x