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Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 8:40 pm
by Tony McC
If your man is necking a score or more pints of the black stuff each day, he'll not need any food - there's more than enough calories in that lot to keep him ticking over until next opening time.
I'm back in Ireland this week and I've imposed a one-pint limit for the Guinness, otherwise the weight will pile back on me. It's an incredibly rich and filling drink, is porter.
Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 9:00 pm
by seanandruby
at the risk of sounding ''extreme'' I would'nt spend ten k on rehab tony. Two weeks is no where near enough to dry out. He needs the first few days on drugs to help eliviate the affects of the alcohol, vitamins, especially vitamins b as booze fecks up the nervous system. After that he will need councilling. As I said before the risk of seizures are quite high when detoxing and at his age there may be other possible complications . I did 12 weeks. Make him see a dr.
Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 9:05 pm
by lutonlagerlout
i spoke to him again and he seems determined to drink himself to death
all things in moderation,someone said
personally 1 good session a week does me any more and i start feeling jaded during the week
I cant work out how a man who drank heavy for 45 -50 years suddenly stepped into the void
most blokes i know it catches them in their thirties,some a bit younger
LLL
Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 9:28 pm
by seanandruby
it hits anyone any age and from all walks of life. I was in with a brain surgeon, an acccoutant, an expert signwriter and callagrapher. Also a high class fraudster was there :;): in those days part of the treatment was trust games, assertiveness training, group therapy etc: I laugh now at the thought of being a tree growing. Very clever stuff really. I still find it hard to mix, converse and am a bit instituionalised. But I'm sober 
Posted: Wed Feb 03, 2010 10:50 pm
by enigmaenigma
Perhaps the alcoholic label was attached to early, and although they are / were a heavy drinker, they haven’t actually stepped across the line
Have you considered plain old depression, and all that comes with that?
And I don’t mean this to sound nasty, but with his age, might he have reached that throwing the towel in point - and giving the towel a helping hand at getting thrown
As for the rehab, and as seanandruby has said, you’ve got to want it for it to work
And although foisting it on someone can occasionally work, the odds are stacked against it, and I tend to think that’s more good luck / intervention by others who can see they are ready
Have you not thought of AA, as it’s their 12 step program that most rehabs use, albeit very intense and with little respite or rest from it – no hiding place or way of making your excuses for not attending / facing it
Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2010 6:59 pm
by rab1
i know lads who drink 8 pints a night and about double that at the weekends but only after work. they never miss their work through drink and do eat regularly, but i once worked with a lad who drank cider all day long. had the shakes if he didn't drink.
Personally would describe the first as heavy drinker but the other as an alkie. ???
Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2010 8:28 pm
by lutonlagerlout
i have a bloke who works with me a bit like that rab
he drinks about 6-8 pints a night and the weekend is fullbore
but he turns up every day and his gambling problems often see him off the drink for a week at a time
a functioning alcoholic i think they call it
LLL
Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2010 8:35 pm
by mickg
I am sorry to hear about your close relative LLL, I have lost a few friends over the years due to drinking themselves to death
I dare say we all know people like this but in the 70's - 80's I knew a lot of guys who would have a 35 - 36 pint session all be it drinking bitter and not guinness, they would start at 12am when the pubs opened and closed at 3pm in the afternoon, go home and have a kip for a few hours to get them ready for the evening session when the pubs opened at 7pm and closed at 11pm
the sad thing is most have passed away now and the remaining guys drink a normal amount like 8 - 10 pints once or twice a week mainly due to 2 reasons
- 1 the body can't take that amount anymore as they got older
- 2 the cost
great people, good craic and hard workers who lived for beer and went to work to earn the money to fund it, I have met guys who would spend 3 weeks on the piss continuously, spend all their money and come back to work for a couple of weeks or shorter if they could to go back on the piss again
they was never called alcoholics back then because it was just a normal way of life for them, some got warned off the doctor if they carry on drinking they will die and they still carried on drinking and alas they passed away
I even phoned the AA hotline for a friend who hit rock bottom after he split up from his wife and took him to one of the meetings, I think I enjoyed the meeting more than he did seeing as it was something I had never experienced before even though i do not drink much
he never went to another meeting again and eventually lost the use of his legs through drink, he is OK now and I have been told he has been dry for 4 years
I don't know the answer to your problem Luton and its good that everyone cares who he has around him, if you or I had aches and pains and drinking eases the pain then you will do it just for an easier life, is he feeling depressed or down due to the fact he has lost most of his drinking buddies hence hitting it harder or has something else changed in his life ?
Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2010 9:11 pm
by rab1
i was talking about my brother with the 8 beers a night. you never really know i suppose, thats how he wrote off the saab. one night watched him slug straight glenfiddich as he ran out of beer on a tuesday, but still turned up at work the next day.
unless he wants to help himself dont think there is much you can do.
Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2010 11:32 pm
by lutonlagerlout
i think beer used to be a lot weaker in the 70's 80's mick,it was a good craic trying to find pubs that would do a late one i.e. locked in till 5pm
i remember playing cards with my old man at the double barrells (since named to the barrells in this politically correct time) we drank 14 pints of skol between 12 and 3 then he drove us home for our dinner
think skol was about 3%,you drowned before you got drunk
we were having a late one in a pub near leighton buzzard one day and my ex boss was arguing with this guy about guns
anyway the guy stormed off ,returned half an hour later and sprayed the pub wall with a sten gun
:O :O
the next day the landlord had beer posters over the bullet holes and the police turned up and took my boss away
there was a big court case and all the witnesses agreed it was an air gun,that was an extreme incident 24 years ago but there were some great craics in the pubs in those days
LLL
Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2010 7:15 am
by mickg
it was great craic Luton, bit of fighting went on every now and then when the testosterone levels got too high but most times they would walk back inside the pub and continue buying each other drinks for the rest of the session, there was never any anger as such to other men just good boisterous fun
Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2010 8:24 am
by Tony McC
As more and more larger sites introduce drink and drug testing, those legendary booze-monsters are seeking refuge on smaller sites or with smaller companies.
One of the best machine drivers I ever employed became useless after 2pm if he hadn't had a drink at lunchtime. I put up with it because he wasn't actually drunk, just "topped-up" and shake-free, and he was such a good driver as well as a family friend, but if I was still contracting, given the current legislation and my insurance, I just wouldn't be able to employ him.
Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2010 12:25 pm
by TheVictorianCobbleCo
Hi LLL, tough one, but the advice here and sympathy is brilliant. From personal experience, so much is in the head here, happy/unhappy, bored/not bored, depressed, and so on. My instinct is to have an honest conversation with him (which Im sure you've done) but , especially if there are kids close to him, include them, and tell him he's loved and needed for as long as he can hang in, and the booze isnt helping. And that his drinking is having a negative effect on their lives. Ask him to cut down 5 beers a day/week, eat the elephant a mouthful at a time.
Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2010 1:59 pm
by lutonlagerlout
once again thanks fellas
I have tried bribing,cajoling,moaning,ignoring and none of it has any effect
I expect he is bored as he has outlived all his old scuds (all dead from drink and fags)
i tried to get him interested in the allotment but he replied " i had enough 14 hour days on a farm as a boy ,never again"
we even tried to put a weekly £150 limit on his switch card but he soon found other avenues of money
as for drinking at work now i wouldn't dream of it and frown on people smoking on any part of the site
jeez, i remember the day we found the glazer asleep in his van on a main road, paraletic,we were all drunk so the hoddy drove sean and his van back to luton,
couldnt do it now of course
LLL
Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2010 3:16 pm
by GB_Groundworks
as i younger member of the cabin and grown up in the rugby circle i have done a bit of the all day all night lock ins in the rugby drinking 25 pints of bitter, albeit at 3.8% like tony said you drown before you get drunk, and you end up on 1 pint p*ss rota haha, but since workng for myself and being a dad i hardly drink anymore can go weeks without drinking, tend to have a few every other saturday when i dont have my boy but still drink bitter then maybe go onto the rum and cokes but never drink shorts neat etc. my mates will drink whiskey can't stand the stuff, but with a good meal and good company can drink a few bottles of red wine and polish it off with maybe a bottle of port shared. but being 18 stone helps absorb it haha. hope you get it sorted Tony mate can't be easy for you or the family
Giles