Thread: Dangers of Excess Alcohol Consumption

I don't know why people become alcoholics. My guess is they just like the way it makes them feel. A type of mood enhancer in a can/bottle.

Thinking some kind of miracle drug/herb can allow you to continue to drink heavily without causing life-threatening damage to your liver is just "snake oil" IMO.

Believe what you want, but I suggest you see a hepatologist if you have reason to suspect that you may have liver damage due to a lifetime of heavy drinking.

Their are blood tests that can indicate the state of your liver, but a better test is to undergo a liver biopsy. It is expensive, painful, and has some degree of risk (needle biopsy), or you can opt for a less painful, more expensive and more risky (TJI - which runs a catheter down your jugular vein), but it is the only definitive way to verify the state of your liver.

At any rate, cutting out all alcohol intake is the easiest and most sure way of preventing more liver damage.

Good luck,

RickThai

Originally Posted by RickThai

I don't know why people become alcoholics.

try reading about addiction

Rick, i was asking Ent about the Lobelia herb not because I think I have liver disease, but because I want to give up smoking. I can go all day without a smoke, but if have a beer, I just want to light up. But thanks for the advice.

Originally Posted by Chang yai

Rick, i was asking Ent about the Lobelia herb not because I think I have liver disease, but because I want to give up smoking. I can go all day without a smoke, but if have a beer, I just want to light up. But thanks for the advice.

Not a problem. Let me know if the herb works. My son smokes and is trying to stop. From what I understand, smoking is much harder to quit than alcohol.

Good luck,

Rick

Originally Posted by Chang yai

Rick, i was asking Ent about the Lobelia herb not because I think I have liver disease, but because I want to give up smoking. I can go all day without a smoke, but if have a beer, I just want to light up. But thanks for the advice.

THe lobelia works for any drug addiction as far as I know.

Giving up smoking using lobelia is easy, and I don't regret using it at all because there aren't any nauseaus side effects and it's non-addictive.

The urge for alcohol also reduces with it, and iI ended up drinking only half of what I used to while I was giving up tobacco.

Give it a go mate, read the "I gave up /not had a smoke" thread.
I've posted lots of info there on the subject.

Living in an environment that has heaps of great bars selling heaps of great beer so cheap is my biggest hurdle and as I have regular guests in town, not to mention local mates I am tempted almost daily to go out on the lash.

I'm quite proud the last 3 days I have met people in a bar, had a coffee and went home.

Someone mentioned that your sleep pattern gets messed up and I can vouch for that. I'm up and down all night and I hope tonight I get a decent nights sleep.

Addictions almost always involve co-addictions.

Tobacco is often a co-addiction to tobacco. This was so in my case.
Therefore it's necessary to get a grip on the second substance and consciously deal to that too.

Look at the little triggers that get you smoking or drinking, and you'll see that every time, yhey generate an anxiety in you.

Well, lobelia masks that anxiety, so reducing the urge to smoke or drink.

I still have a littlr jar of dried lobelia leaves sitting on my desk, hardly use it these days, but occasionally, just occasionally an anxiety gets over the top and as of habit, I'll feel like a smoke or want a drink.

BUT, when I feel like that, I'll take a tiny pinch of lobelia leaf and within 10 - 15 seconds the anxiety is gone.

No more problem.

That may happen once or twice a week, these days.

No smokes since 23rd December last.

Originally Posted by Loy Toy

Living in an environment that has heaps of great bars selling heaps of great beer so cheap is my biggest hurdle and as I have regular guests in town, not to mention local mates I am tempted almost daily to go out on the lash.

I'm quite proud the last 3 days I have met people in a bar, had a coffee and went home.

Someone mentioned that your sleep pattern gets messed up and I can vouch for that. I'm up and down all night and I hope tonight I get a decent nights sleep.

Lobelia helps you sleep.

I got on to Lobelia and chamomile tea for a good sleep.

Mind you, ganja works.

Originally Posted by Loy Toy

Living in an environment that has heaps of great bars selling heaps of great beer so cheap is my biggest hurdle and as I have regular guests in town, not to mention local mates I am tempted almost daily to go out on the lash.

I'm quite proud the last 3 days I have met people in a bar, had a coffee and went home.

Someone mentioned that your sleep pattern gets messed up and I can vouch for that. I'm up and down all night and I hope tonight I get a decent nights sleep.

Actually it's quite hard to stay really good friends with heavy drinkers once you stop.

You'll discover that "drunks" are nowhere as witting as they seem when you are drunk as well. You will also notice the horrible odor emanating from them (smells like vomit).

Really good friends will try to limit or halt their drinking around you, which is no fun for anybody. Other drinking buddies will constantly offer you a drink or make bad jokes about your not drinking.

Still, avoiding long-term liver disease is certainly worth the effort IMO.

Again, good luck,

RickThai

Sleep is difficult when you stop drinking ,night sweats,and in the sleep the nervous system jerks the body into spasms as the body adjusts to functioning without alchohol.
Itchy skin may be another,as the nerve endings tingle.

A disposition and biological make-up are key factors as such applies to addiction.

An addictive personality can easily develop in those who are vacant of fiber.
Psychological obsessions can appear easily in today's lifestyle than of yesteryear.

Many who do fall into the alcohol trap in Thailand after settling in with a partner and new home aren't communicating fully with their spouse/wife, so just to relieve the tension and isolation they feel, they they escape to a bar for company or drink too much at home.

^ Jeepers! Hope that non-fully communication thing doesn't drive me to drinking. SIL says that she speaks English. I say, right. That is assuming that we would live together, which is pretty much a given since she is in my house. No bar close by though. Just my niece's store. That ought to work in my favor. I better get used to sil chewing on dang dang.

Guess there is a fine line between being an alcoholic and a heavy drinker. In my blog I have one piece called boozers, losers, drifters and dreamers.

It's hot here and I note the beer flows freely anywhere you go. I don't think these people are alcoholics, they drink too much [ me included ] but they have lived their lives, worked and functioned, some with very high paid and respected jobs.
Some step over the line and it's not beer, but the hard stuff, they drink with the boys, but have a shot or 2 when they go to the toilet. Some sit at home knocking back Sam Sung or Whiskey.
I drink. but seldom fall legless drunk into bed, but a few days ago attended a farang birthday party at a friends resort. When I got up and went to have coffee, some of the guests were having their first for the day. 2 were off shore oil workers and they drink like there is no tomorrow, but they go back and no booze. Will they step over the line when they retire or just settle into a routine, who knows. Jim

Been there too.
Drink with the boys, yahooing and crazy, crash into a bed, wake up with a head only an other beer can fix. get drunk enough to get hungry, eat, drink some more, fall asleep in the heat the afternoon slips by.
Hey ho, it's dark, the sound of laughter across thhe way, where's the beer?
AQnd it's all on a gain , sometimes days on end until I'd wake up one day and say, fk dat.

Go bush for a while, the stink of whisky rank on my skin, sweat is sticky, skin's itchy, legs are twitchy, can't sleep. Days later I'm fit again, lots of walking, plenty of grub, lots of bush crashing, lungs pumping, dying for a fag and another beer when I get out. Fkn bush.

Fall into that cold clear stream, gulp that ice-melt water down, hurts my belly, drank too fast.
Get up, keep going, gotta get out before dark, the bush ain't no good without cover.

See lights through the trees, stumbling, jumping, half running, get to that farm house, knock on their door, shivering, not with cold, but with fear, fear of getting back into this insane world I left ten days ago when I was hungover.

Back again, back into the madness we call civilised life again.

"G'day mate have a beer!"
"Alright,...got a fag?"

Tears running down my face as I go out for a piss, I can't tell them what a fwkd up world they're living in.

I've just been bush.

thank you for that insight into your addiction, bENT

Originally Posted by ENT

Drink with the boys, yahooing and crazy, crash into a bed, wake up with a head only an other beer can fix.

If I get pissed up I wake up with a nasty hangover that takes two days to get rid off.

The last thing I want on the said morning is more alcohol, I don't get it how people can do it as my system can not do it.

That's why I could never ever be an alchy and I get to live on to be able to have a drink when the occasion calls for it.

Good innit.

That was just a bit of a story from the good/bad old days.

Keraist I could yard it down then!

Now I have a couple of bottles of red wine and maybe up to four pints of good beer a week, if that.

When I was working hard and sweating out heaps, eating good tucker, plenty of it, it was OK to drink the volume I did.

Nowadays, no way! I realised I was drinking too much a few years back, so gradually weaned myself off the stuff, the best way for me.

Some people have a robust constitution, genetic, inherited, like my Dad and Grandad and his dad too, all strong and capable of hard physical work. My sons are like that too.
We all had/have the capacity to drink heaps! They say that that's an inherited capacity, there's a gene for it.

Asians and Africans and so on just can't drink like that without flipping out or killing themselves.

Some folk have a gene for alcoholism, much worse, they can't control the compulsion to drink, so must abstain.
I think it's the same gene that causes binge drinking. I never had that problem, I didn't actually binge, except during the time of my little story, above.

Normally, I'd just be a steady habitual drinker, a glas or two of wine with a meal, or a few at the weekend. and so on, but I could stop and just not drink, depending on mood, usually.

A lot would depend on the company I kept, especially hard work crews. Bad lads.

^ Good on ya Terry! I went and a few cans after a decent spell sober, and like yourself got a bad head the next day for my troubles. In a good It showed,and more importantly , reminded me why I felt the need to put the brakes on quick.

Can't green you Crocman! The start of my problems where with people who drink locally, to a higher degree too. They didn't make good companions tbh. Strange how it all adds up when you look at it in the sober light of day.

^too true and good on you.