Before you judge – imagine the pain, the torture of being a slave to something that is an obstacle that controls you. That obstacle for some is a bottle.
He awakes shaking, barely able to stand until he takes that first drink of the day. It is to the point that it is actually life saving to sip away the hours, he explained to me.
“If someone asks what I need money for, I will tell them it is to buy something to drink - Some understand and some do not,” he said.
I asked, “Do you ever see yourself sober?” With a pause and almost to the point of tears he told me, “Not right now, not right now.”
Despite all of this being said, “He” is still in there behind the pain and behind the addiction. “He” is still very much human and sees those who drive by and shake their head or say negative comments about his life as if he is not already struggling.
In alcoholism, ones cells eventually require alcohol to function. The alcoholic without alcohol feels physically horrid, misplaced, confused and sick.
During the end stages of alcoholism, heart, liver, respiratory disorders grow. As the end nears, pneumonia, alcoholic hepatitis, cancer, heart failure and more are all common.
Mental impairments continue and the alcoholic is unable to see the negative changes within his or her own body. Thus, the damage continues to grow worse as death nears.
One of the most famous quotes is quite true:
"First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you." — F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby