Narconon spokesperson reveals the many ways that chronic alcohol abuse can increase the risk of death, including death from trauma, which might otherwise be survived.
When a person is a chronic drinker, those around him have decisions to make. Will they intervene? Will there be an ultimatum about the drinking habit? Would this alienate that family member or friend? Recent information on all the ways that chronic alcohol abuse increases the risk of death provides new motivation for family and friends to insist that the chronic drinker get help immediately.
In England, a 36-year-old man died in jail after being restrained for violent behavior. There were signs of mild trauma consistent with being restrained but the coroner ruled that his chronic alcohol abuse was a factor in his death. In other words, his alcohol-weakened body could not deal with a usual level of restraint. This death and its aftermath were covered by the news publication Peterborough Today.
In 2011, a woman in Poway near San Diego was found dead in her car. The Poway Patch stated that the cause was determined to be complications related to her chronic alcohol habit.
And in 2012, two men who had been drinking in Ishpeming, Michigan got into a fight. Not an unusual event in this iron-mining town, but after a rather ordinary fight, one of the men, Carl Mercer, died. As published in the Mining Journal website, the coroner stated that the man’s extremely high blood alcohol concentration and damage from chronic alcohol abuse had been factors in his death.
A 2009 report from the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health noted that as many as a thousand deaths a year in the UK probably resulted from the effects of chronic alcohol abuse on the hearts of those who died. But the report also stated that in many cases, this association was probably unnoticed.
Is This Enough to Spur Intervention?
“Families of those who are addicted to alcohol often live with the fear that they will be abused or that the addicted person may die in a traffic accident,” commented Derry Hallmark, Director of Admissions at Narconon Arrowhead, a premier drug rehabilitation center in Oklahoma. “They may not realize that alcohol weakens the drinker so that they may not survive a relatively mild traumatic incident such as a fall. This knowledge should spur families to intervene to stop an addicted person from drinking.”
Unfortunately, most alcoholics very often do not see their own abuse of alcohol as a problem. A family may have to enlist the aid of a professional interventionist who is experienced in helping a person understand the necessity of getting help. To really get results from alcohol rehab, the alcoholic must want to want to get sober, and this means that the person must be helped to find that desire to be sober that may lie deeply concealed under the alcoholism.
“At Narconon Arrowhead, we work with a national network of interventionists who come to the aid of families trying to save the lives of loved ones,” added Mr. Hallmark. “We can assist a family in finding the right kind of help for their situation. Once a person arrives at our door, we can then help them on their way to sobriety.”
Narconon Arrowhead has been helping people from all over the country achieve lasting sobriety since 1992. For information on Narconon, call 1-800-468-6933.