Tragedy of Alcoholism

When life becomes comparable to a movie, a sad one that is sure to end in tragedy, you die a little every time each day. When you get to watch this happen in other people’s lives, you feel immense pain for the people affected and you’ll ponder about the situation for a long, long time, the plot always remains there, only a spark is needed to ignite the memory even after years of its occurrence. A few days ago I experienced such a moment that haunts my mind now and then. It may sound like a minor incident for the readers, the reason might be they having faced a similar situation earlier, but the incident has touched me greatly.

First week in medicine ward, the excitement plus enthusiasm. We had to take the history of a patient who had been admitted there, a case of chronic liver disease. As the case was said to be serious(with complications), only few friends stayed by the bed taking history from the patient’s wife. The patient lay there semiconscious, moaning at times. I stayed aside and was reading on alcohol liver disease, particularly liver cirrhosis, the disease the patient had been diagnosed with when my friends called me to console the wife(about 50 yrs age) who was constantly crying, struck with grief. I tried to sympathize with her and make her realize how strong she needed to be at the moment for her husband, her family, and herself. Little had I known that she needed to be a lot stronger than what I had wanted her to be.A doctor in the round explained the case in English, that way the visitors in the ward wouldn’t understand what we were talking about. All of us surrounding the bed were shocked to know that the person had only 10% survival chance due to multi-organ failure and that he could even die within a few hours. Never had we guessed that person was counting his last breaths. Never had I come across such a case in my life earlier where someone was lying in his deathbed.

I was blank. Most of my friends who came to know about this were too. It was only after a moment of realization of how the reality differed from the situation we had imagined the patient to be in, that I could talk with my friends about the same. If we felt that bad on hearing the news, how must have the patient felt on knowing about it? The reason for the devastated look on the wife’s face and her red eyes was thus explained.

The patient party was in great financial crisis, so much that they couldn’t even afford to shift the patient to ICU. The presence of complications(ascites, variceal bleeding, encephalopathy, failing kidneys: presence of these considered as the last stage) had made the prognosis worse, the cost of treatment was huge. Because of Because of monetary reasons they wanted their relative to be discharged, a doctor was okay with it as that would create fewer issues. We had thought about collection of funds but the amount was huge and possibility of betterment was almost none existent.

Alcoholic liver disease is a disease of liver cause by excessive alcohol consumption over anumber of years. In this disease, as you keep drinking the alcohol, the liver becomes fatty, then inflamed and then shrinks due to fibrosis. Chronic heavy drinkers are always in the risk of getting this disease and the risk increases if you are a woman. The progression of the disease is more rapid in a country like ours because of various reasons and the chances of getting the complications are also high here.That very day we saw another person, who was younger than the previous patient admitted in ICU, who was very serious. It proves that alcoholism is very common in our scenario and is dangerous as well. So is the case of smoking and tobacco chewing. The huge number of people indulged in these activities surely are reflects the lack of awareness and prevalence of negligence.

One may have different excuses for these but not any of the reasons are justifiable against the crime you are committing against yourself.  Their social stigma, their effects in health and the problems that they bring along are reasons sufficient for the users to either quit(at least reduce to a much safer dose). We may be tempted into alcohol abuse, but the temptation must be removed.

In the first case, after suffering from the disease, the patient must have regretted over his repeated acts of drinking alcohol. His close ones must have felt angry over him for not quitting alcohol, might have felt bad thinking had they forced more, he could have stopped drinking. I pray for the family. If we know or come across people who abuse alcohol and tobacco, let us share our words of wisdom. Who knows how many lives will be saved that way with the knowledge flowing on and on?