bbc2 documentary

Ah bbc2 didnt see that haha

The NHS will put smokers and drinkers at the very bottom of the queue in NHS help. Yet its the smokers and drinkers that pay the most in taxes to help fund it. Hypicritical i think. Espesh when its supposed to be free at point of delivery and everyone chips in to help each other out. (through taxes)

Personally I thought it was stage managed. My own opinion and I'm speaking from experience. 

Ive turned up at A&E before begging for help. Told to stop wasting their time and go to my GP. GP says go to alcohol services who don't believe in medication.

maybe I missed the last bit, but with Tom wanting to abstain from alcohol, I didn't hear any mention of acamprosate or any drugs. I did miss the last bit so this may have been discussed, but from what I saw and from my own experience, It wasn't real.

Nope, no medication discussed. They didn't even really cover the fact that the guy had gone to live with his father and taken himself out of the routine and environment which was reinforcing his drinking pattern.

Nothing about what happens to people when they've been detoxed, how the alcohol agencies fail them, so they end up back drinking again. I doubt doctors go running out into the street to chase after people who have come in through A&E, who are drunk and said, I'm off to get a bottle of vodka. As for the bottle of perrier, who was he fooling, that was to cover him, for the couple of bottles of miniatures he'd bought and downed, to give him the calming hit. He seemed a lot less stressed when he returned.

Also, the woman and her boyfriend drinking in a park on a bench in the middle of London - not only will plod move you on, and I can't speak for others, but I drank socially in the pub or in the privacy of my own home. I doubt very many people who are addicted alcohol, like to sit on a bench with the public around, shwoing they have a problem. I think most people like to keep it very quiet and go to great legths to hide it.

I could t agree more. I would never drink on a park bench, would have to wait till I got home. What happened to the bloke who was told he only had 76% of surviving 3 months ? K cider is great, one of my favourite drinks.. Her boyfriend who was so demeaning, obviously had an alcohol problem.

no doubt I will be slated, but was totally unreal, no mention of so called functioning alcoholics. How many medical professionals would follow a patient three times outside, then try and light a cigarette for them. No wonder Paul turner left the nhs

The bloke was actually told by the doctor, we have a reference chart for alcoholics, and each of the 22 items on it scores a point. If we had a group of people in your condition, 76% would be dead within three months.

To which he said (sorry London vernacular alert), well that's effing great innit, I'm going to be brown bread in three months (actually that's my take on it).

Then Theroux said, no she didn't say that, what she said was that 76% of people in your situation will be dead in three months. Oh, that changes everything then.

We never saw him again, which leads me to believe that he was in fact one of the 76ers.

It's on iplayer for the next 29 days if you're in the UK, or know of good proxy servers in your country.

Just watched the end of the programme. To me as already said it wasn't really 'true'. Yes the people involved were true, but not really IMO portrayed the very heart of the problem.

my main concern was the complete lack of after care. Ok detox someone for a week then bye bye?

no mention of follow up medication, I.e. Acamprosate, nalfemene, naltrexone, or even GP for diazapam. 

Quite honestly the fact there was no real follow up, see one patient once, then not again was pointless.

i didn't think it was a documentary which had delved deeply enough as to why, the people they were following, were where they were. They certainly hardened thought where these people were goIng, or how they could be helped in the future.

Yeah have seen the whole programme twice now.

to me it didn't delve deeply enough into the physiological aspects and the reasons why we and up here.

you never appeared to be alcohol dependant, but would drink daily. Me, as a binge drinker, could go weeks without a drink. But then, once on a binge would drink through the night and morning.

glad you're on the home straight. Can I ask how your wife copes with all this?

'Can I ask how your wife copes with all this?'

What you have to remember, is that my drinking came to a head at exactly the same as I had a very severe stroke, a type that kills most people. So prior to that it was no problem, I got up in the morning got on with my life.

Then one Friday I started to feel unwell, and the next thing I'm in one hospital, being stablised for a trip to the specialist hospital and at the other hospital she sees me being taken out of an ambulance on a  trolley with an oxygen mask and being rushed into emergency, and then taken to ICU.

And then two months, of visiting me in hospital, seeing me hooked up to various things, having drains just like the guy on the documentary, catheters and cannulas attached, going yellow and one eye completely red. And at the end of it she didn't know what she was going to get, a vegetable in a wheelchair or someone with presonality disorders and mood swings.

That was probably the tough time for her and for a while afterwards, where I was struggling to deal with things and come to terms with what had happened and probably wasn't the most reasoanble person I have ever been.

As for drinking, that's a walk in the park, apart for a period of moderate/heavy drinking during the latter part of last year for about four or five months, I have not been drinking for the last two years.

She is a bottle of red a night person, sometimes with a beer as well. So I'm the one nagging her to cut down. Not stop, I'm not one of those born again ex-smoker types, I just want her to ease up a bit.

The conversation usually goes something like, I nag her to cut back a bit, she says, oh great I'm being lectured on my drinking by an ex-alcoholic, look where you ended up, in hospital. To which I go, exactly, you have seen first hand what can happen, who better to understand the effects and warn you.

No, you're not the normal forum member (that's a compliment!) so your wife's feelings will be different. I smoke and my husband has given up. The moans I get are terrible, can't hang my coat next to his, eat mints I hate etc.

Then I think, hey you go to the pub twice a week, drink two bottles of Addams Sunday lunch, so if I want a fag I'll have one lol 

You have not been drinking for the last 2 years?  I'm confused..I thought there was a slip sometime this year and that you have some time about 3 months now without a drink?

​I'm trying to keep people straight...who is where in their sobriety...its tough on this site....since we are always chatting on many different topics.

Hi misssy

i was doing ok, went on hols with family and started drinking for two days when home.

got over that and then because I felt so anxious and couldn't sleep for two nights, I drank on Saturday, my daughters party. I did go, but much later when sober. You won't have seen the tv last night. It was cxxp. 

Am am now trying to get normal before my next hols. Any idea why two weeks without drink, I struggle through each day craving a drink?

Yep, it was in my post, about four to five months in the latter part of last year. I came out of hospital June 2014 and didn't drink until over a year later. Then August 2015 I believe, I started drinking and very soon afterwards reaalised I should stop and went to the alcohol recovery centre which was of no help. But I knew I was finding it harder to give up this time - kindling perhaps.

So I went to the GP and got diazepam and self detoxed. But that only lasted a month and I was back on it. It was at the time I saw the recovery centre and my GP, that I registered here. and began to learn about alcohol and what it does and the effect.

During that time I made an effort to work out what medication or counselling was going to get me past the detox stage, so I chose Campral. So from the beginning of this year, when I self detoxed at home with diazepam again, from my GP, and then got Campral, I have been sober.

Oh...thx...yea..so your like me and others that have had sober time....we don't and SHOULDNT let go of the time we have had....when you said you had a longer time sober...years...I only thought it wasn't you that had relapsed....

​I still say a million times...I had 8 years sober..but since there was a bigger drinking period than you had after those 8 years....I can't say I have 8 years sober...or can I?  LOL...I relapsed for 2 almost 3 years. 

I think the 2 week point we start craving because....we feel better....and we want to feel EVEN BETTER with a drink....for me, I always think...ok my body is recovered...I just won't get carried away this time...

​And then wham...I'm drunk again and regretting it.  Honestly, I would give my left arm today to drink...

​I'm tired of all the Drs appts..I'm tired of all the pending results...I'm tired of my dysfunctional family life...I'm tired of being unemployed and alone....I'm tired of everything.....