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I'm glad that you are willing to do what your doctor recommended; never drink again. Unfortunately my boyfriend who I took to the er and spent a week recovering has lost weight and now thinks it's ok to drink again. It's only a beer! He argues with me after I find him secretly drinking in the yard. You are right, it is a disease with a personal choice. I fear his choices, while his, will unfortunately drastically affect me. And it makes me so sad. I don't know what to do.
I just want to point out a few alternatives, so that AA does not dominate and appear to be the only way to stop drinking. Other groups include Women for Sobriety, SMART, LifeRing and Rational Recovery (although RR does not have groups anymore).
WFS is uplifting and does not focus on powerlessness and requires no belief in God or a higher power.
LifeRing's motto is "Don't drink no matter what."
SMART derives it's philosophy from rational emotive therapy.
Rational Recovery is more a do it yourself way.
The Sinclair method is worth looking into, although I confess I don't know much about it, but there is plenty on the Net to inform you.
There are forums on the Net which encourage use of naltrexone, baclofen, Campral and maybe some other drugs I am forgetting.
Milk Thistle is supposed to be good for the liver and I take it when I remember. Part of the reason I take it is because I am on Singulair (asthma), three blood pressures meds, and other meds for depression and anxiety and ADD. That's a LOT of drugs for my liver to process and milk thistle does help.
A huge portion of those in AA actually have untreated mental illness and could benefit from psychotropic drugs. The only catch with these drugs is they can be hard on the liver and ESPECIALLY if combined with alcohol, but it doesn't sound to me like that is an option for you anymore. Still, for some people whose drinking is a result of untreated mental illness, these drugs can be essential to recovery. When you have a drinking issue (as I call it) and a mental health issue, one is called dual diagnosis. You can google on that to find out more information,
I'd post links to all of these other paths but don't think it's kosher to do so in this forum. You can google on all of them.
The point is science has advanced and you don't need a God or higher power in your life to stop drinking. These other paths work better for some people than AA. In fact, studies have shown that for those with mental health challenges AA is not nearly as effective as other approaches. Unfortunately, due to the predominance of AA you don't hear about these other groups usually. Well, I am here to tell you they're out there.
BTW, I did have a friend who had acute pancreatitus. The crazy thing is she'd been throwing up for weeks (while heavily drinking) and thought she might be pregnant (she is post menopausal). She ended up in the hospital with pancreatitis and was discharged. She immediately went home and started drinking again and packed her backpack to go back to the hospital. This time she ended up with acute renal failure. BTW, she had flatlined once in her drinking career so it's incredible she was still alive.
Anyway, drinking is out for her completely now. Her life got back on track. I lost touch with her and hope she is still doing well.
People diagnosed with pancreatitis can never drink again or they will die. It may not happen the first time or second but I've seen it and the people don't believe they can't drink anymore. That if they do they will die. Please if you've been diagnosed don't drink anymore; it will kill you.
Who the heck told you that? Alcohol is not the only cause of panreatitis. I spent ten days in the hospital with it on a diet of IV and morphine a few years ago. Mine was caused by a gall stone...The pancreatic duct joins the duct from the gall bladder and a gall stone sometimes lodges where they join and blocks everything up like a stuck drain...This causes the digestive enzymes to back up into the pancreas and digest the pancreas...A very poor design I'd say...I had my gall bladder removed, and have had no problems since, and I do drink occasionally.
Who the heck told you that? Alcohol is not the only cause of panreatitis. I spent ten days in the hospital with it on a diet of IV and morphine a few years ago. Mine was caused by a gall stone...The pancreatic duct joins the duct from the gall bladder and a gall stone sometimes lodges where they join and blocks everything up like a stuck drain...This causes the digestive enzymes to back up into the pancreas and digest the pancreas...A very poor design I'd say...I had my gall bladder removed, and have had no problems since, and I do drink occasionally.
Where did I say that it was caused only by alcohol? Where ... please ... I'm waiting ...
Don't need one...They diagnosed my problem as alcohol related at first, but discovered they were wrong...Why the sarcasm?
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