Why can’t alcoholics just stop?

Question by wbs31964: Why can’t alcoholics just stop?
A year ago my older sister died of liver and kidney failure. She was 49 years old. After her husband died unexpectedly in 1994, my sister began drinking heavily. Everyone in the family tried to get her to recognize her problem and go to treatment, but she always refused. She always had to do things “her way”, and going to a treatment program would have meant giving up some control. A year before she died, she did actually go to AA for a while and stayed sober for almost 100 days. Unfortunately she went back to drinking though, even heavier than ever before. Finally, she was admitted to a hospital with end-stage liver and kidney failure in February last year, and she died 10 days later.

My sister was not some uneducated, poor person. She had a bachelor’s degree and she lived in a fine home. But alcoholism was stronger than she was, and she was destroyed by it.

To this day I still can’t understand why addictions are so extremely difficult to overcome. Yes, yes I have heard that it is a disease, but still… most diseases have some kind of operation or drug to correct it, but with alcoholism there’s no surgery, no drug.

I miss my sister. I love her but now she is gone, forever, except in our hearts. She died a horrible death from a terrible illness. How could this have been avoided? What more could I have done to help her?

Best answer:

Answer by Ginny Jin
only she could stop when she was ready and sometimes that never happens. i was an alcoholic for 22 years and stopped last
May. You have to understand the reasons why people start. 3 hours sleep a night over 5 years can make people turn to drink. No friends. Lack of socialisation. The feeling that the damage is already done so why even bother to try and get better. Your friends evaporate. Your husband walks. There’s only so much social services will do. so you drink and drink.

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