It points out it's not the binge party drinker but just what some would consider regular moderate consumption.

I posted this as all of my posts as information..take from it what you wish. :)

Liver disease is such a buzzkill! HCV is certainly an unwelcomed party guest that ruins your party and calls the police to your home.

As a retired professional drinker for over 22 years now, it's kind of hard to remember what it was like when I first retired, and was going ape shit for a beer or ten...:>) And that's before I even had my first real drink @ lunchtime!

The second year was a little better yet, it was still very agonizing when I saw other folks enjoying themselves while drinking, and that's why I mention it because I know what it was like when I first recognized in my mind that I would no longer be able to enjoy myself with other folks, the many different social experiences one found themselves in especially when drinking anything with alcohol in it...

It felt so bad that I literally wanted to cut myself right out of my skin!!! And this is while I was in AA just struggling along and acting as if I had my sh!t together, and had beaten back my alcohol cravings because nothing could be further from the truth!!!

This was also the year I was diagnosed with HCV and was recommended to go on this then experimental treatment of Alpha interferon via injections daily at the time and just wanted to curl into a ball and roll myself into a corner, any corner and just isolate myself from everybody and everything until the injections no longer worked and I was left twittiling my toes and wondering what came next after I was again hospitalized and was told that I had liver cancer and only had a few years if that to live, so it was a very bad year!!!

Then one of many epiphanies told me to go back to work and shake yourself out of this funk by going back to work as a boilermaker/pipe welder and travel out to the rest of the country in order to get away from any acknowledgment that I was dying by totally denying that I was!!!

So I went to work as a pipe welder with the boilermakers local 154 out of Pittsburgh, PA and was assigned to the many coal fired power plants on either side of the Ohio river in West Virginia, Ohio and western Pennsylvania...

I had stopped going to AA meetings which can be found all over the world, but I was in denial of my reality so it didn't matter because I wasn't going to let anybody, or anything, anywhere get to me and start the wheels of depression, get the best of me...

I was determined not to end up again as a human ball of despair and isolate myself from the rest of the world or the rest of my life... I almost convinced myself that once I got my first pay check, I would celebrate with a six pack of some ice cold ones, and then go out and paint the town BLACK!!! Did I mention ALMOST???

Divine intervention is totally mind blowing once you first really experience it!!! I know this because that's what happened to me on the day we got paid! Instead of a package store, I went to an AA meeting and confessed what I was feeling all week to complete strangers with the hope that they could help me stay sober for the weekend or even just for that evening!!!

And they succeeded in keeping me sober for the rest of the days I was in their town of Wheeling, West Virginia!!! It really is a town full of wonderful people and not just in AA but also everywhere I went while I was working close by!

When I first went to that AA meeting on that Friday afternoon, I was so scared of slipping and drinking again that everybody there thought that I was running away from somebody because it was written all over my face!!! Right there and then I made a decision that I would not go back to drinking again because if everybody acted like these people did and I would have to drink with people like them, I wouldn't enjoy it any longer at all!!! I mean, I would never be caught dead with people like them!!! They were too nice, too considerate, too respectful, too different from the kind of people I was used to being with when I drank so I wouldn't feel at all comfortable being around folks like the one's I met in the AA meeting in WVA!!!

But I did enjoy being around them while still sober!!! So I kep coming back to those meetings in WVA and slowly but surely, the thought of picking up again got out of my head once again and I'll always be grateful to those folks in that dilapidated AA meeting in Wheeling, WVA!!!

After that job was finished I was sent to Bow Junction, New Hampshire to work on another coal fired power plant, then back to Western PA, Ohio, Parkersburgh, WVA, and then finally to Colver,PA where my esophageal varicies ruptured and I ended up driving myself all the way down to Johnstown, PA where I was eventually life flighted via whirly bird to Pittsburgh, PA's UPMC only to find out later that I needed a liver transplant...

Throughout that period of time from the week I had convinced myself that I was gonna fall off the wagon to when I was told the grim news, I went to an AA meeting at least six to seven times a week and I was grateful that I did back then as I still am today...

I still go to meetings although I don't go as often because of recent illnesses... I go because they worked for me, so I'm not saying that they'll work for you but heck! It's at least worth a try!

22 years sober and retired and still counting does say a bit though!!!!!

Why was I a professional drinker??? Because I actually made myself believe that I was getting paid to drink!!! Well, I did make a lot of money shooting pool @ the many different bars I frequented when I resided in Queens, NY! Does that count? PEACE!

Respectfully,
Henry "

Hawklive wish they had a like button,Sept 9 90 is my Dday Best Regards Donny

Thanks for sharing that Henry

Thanks so much for sharing your experience, strength, and hope

Cornwalls....Best speakers Ive ever heard hahha
And ya really dont have to worry about alcoholism. Because your liver gets to a certain point and you can no longer get drunk you just kiddof go from that first bear to the hangover with no fun in between. At least thats what has happened to me.and I was born drinking. I had my first drink about 6 months old P.B.R. And everybody where I was was making moonshine also. Now that is the good stuff. Yah it burns but iits a good tasting burn and heck half a cup and your falling down in the mud puddle drunk hahha Good old days haha

Same here DK ..no fun buzz anynore..it's a few sips and massive haedache ..fun? not.

Damn DreamK had your first drink at 6 months old.Did your parents own a Bar or something?

I was diagnosed in 2010 and I quit drinking in '99 with the help of AA, which has given me a sanity I never knew before. Definitely don't think I could have handled this without the help of my fellow Godseekers.
Thank You AA!!!