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The Banana Man

I have seen Cirrohis up close, and I can assure you it is nasty. One of my lifelong friends and my former business partner is an alcoholic. His name is John and he promised to stay on the wagon to entice me to work with him, and it proved to be the biggest mistake of my life. He lives in San Francisco and I in Chicago, so he was out of my sight doing his thing most of the time.His wife had  died after a short illness and he took it badly, and I suspected he was drinking again. Those fears were confirmed when I received a phone call four or five months after his wife’s passing from a mutual friend who said John had been taken to the hospital after a binge.He said it didn’t look good.

I hopped on the next plane and got to California and took a cab to the hospital. I was astounded by what I saw. My friend was the color of a fresh banana–sort of like the Incredible Hulk but the color of French’s mustard. He was babbling incomprehensible phrases. He recognized me but quickly forgot I was there. A group of our Bay Area friends met at the hospital. The doctors said it didn’t look good. One pulled me aside and said my friend had Cirrohisis, which wasn’t a surprise from his appearance.His liver had shut down, and as I learned over the next few days, when your liver goes, so does everything else in your body, The liver controls most of your major organs, at least in a dependant way. His kidneys were failing and he had to go on dialysis treatments three times a day.

Most of the next week he really didn’t know where he was. The doctors said the next few days were critical but that he probaby wouldn’t make it six months even if he survived this immediate crisis. I literally spent thirty minutes talking to him one morning trying to get him to give me the details on how to retrieve his phone messages back at his apartment. He couldn’t remember the password. And this entire time his body was still 100% pure banana colored. It was an awful experience for everybody.

A week passes and he starts to get better. Gradually. He’s still on dialysis three times a day, but at least he can talk fairly cogently. And slowly he regains his personality–starts kidding with all the nurses and telling stories. After three weeks he was discharged but had to go to a half-way house that could take care of his dialysis and other medical needs. He would get transported twice a day in a van to a clinic where the dialysis was done. I flew home as I had been there a month and had a lot of business matters to attend to and see my wife, who was very supportive during this period.

A month goes by and my friend’s best friend in SF calls and says John is going home–he’s getting out of the half-way house after six weeks, but still requires dialysis daily, but now just once a day. I flew back to San Francisco and we all (there were about six of us) go out to celebrate John’s birthday. As dinner ended and we were having a cognac (not John!), our mutual friend says he wants to make an announcement. He makes a toast and says that today is a special day. It’s John’s birthday, and he’s pleased to announce that the doctors have decided he no longer needs dialysis! There was a hurrah that filled the restaurant!

It was truly a remarkable experience. But I was reflecting on the plane back to Chicago how 30 years earlier John and the rest of us Irish Catholic boys would spend our evenings in the bars of Georgetown, getting drunk and chasing women. We had a lot of laughs, something we repeated many times together over the years. It was really part of our culture.

But this is where it led. And there were no laughs and jokes being told. If it weren’t so personally tragic, I wish we could have fast-forwarded into the future from those early care-free days to see what drinking and alcoholism is all about and where it leads.

John was lucky, and his liver bounced back and healed. But the doctors told him that he could never drink alcohol again–that it would poison him, like drinking a glass of cyanide.  And you know what? John’s stayed on the wagon ever since. He still goes to bars and shoots the bull with his friends. But he drinks diet soda instead of the ever-present beer. And he’s enjoying his life just as much as before. Lucky for him. He got a second chance.

If you or someone you know is a heavy drinker and  has looked a little jaundiced of late, it’s probably a sign that the liver is damaged. Before it gets to the point my friend faced there are some  natural homeopathic remedies  to detox your liver and get you back on the right track. Of course, once you go through this process, you need to be committed to a life of alcohol abstinance if you want  to live a longer life. Not lecturinh here, but those are just the facts.

Good luck!

Published by Rehab Help Online

Alcoholism and Cirrhosis of the Liver

Alcohol addiction increases the risk of developing cirrhosis of the liver – a potentially life threatening disease. Read more about it here.  

Liver Cirrhosis May Also Harm Brain, Heart

Cirrhosis of the liver, which kills 25000 people in Unites States annually, is often a result of alcohol abuse or hepatitis C. The disorder occurs when the liver is damaged and can’t properly filter toxins. 

Scots Drink Nearly 12 Litres Of Pure Alcohol A Year Each 

Professor Martin Plant of the University of the West of England, Bristol, who has conducted several studies into alcoholism, said that cirrhosis now affects 20 to 30-year-olds in addition to those aged between 55 and 74, the age group … 

 What Causes Cirrhosis?

Unfortunately, there are no medicines for cirrhosis brought on by overdrinking and overeating. The only way to help cirrhosis due to alcoholism is to stop drinking entirely so the liver can regenerate. 

Chronic Alcoholism and Cirrhosis of the Liver

The liver breaks down alcohol into toxic chemicals, some of which trigger the inflammation that leads to cirrhosis. Cirrhosis caused by alcoholism usually occurs after 10 to 15 years of heavy drinking.

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Technorati Tags: addiction, addiction recovery, alcoholism, cirrhosis, cirrhosis of liver, half-way house, liver cirrhosis, liver disease

Tags: addiction, addiction recovery, alcoholism, cirrhosis, cirrhosis of liver, half-way house, liver cirrhosis, liver disease

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 26th, 2009 at 3:53 pm and is filed under addiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.