Re: Drinking and Liver Disease

[Guest guest]

,

Drinking has been part of the " rite of passage " for young people for a long

time. I remember hearing warnings when I was 16 and thinking that the

people telling me of the hazards of alcohol didn't know what they were

talking about but that they were just trying to frighten me. Then, the

" wild " kids were more apt to drink but now I have the impression that it's

generally acceptable by almost everyone. I think it's great that those who

chose NOT to drink aren't viewed as some kind of social outcast.

It's not that you necessarily might want to drink. I never did care one

way or the other. It's that you CAN'T drink that must be hard to accept.

Our grandson brought us a bottle of fine Australian wine after he returned

from a 6 month university research project there. I really regretted not

being able to at least have a glass of it with him and my husband and I

know that he was disappointed when I didn't.

Your situation is so much different than mine because of your age. You

have the potential to have considerable harm to come to you if you don't

follow your doctor's guidelines. If all goes well, you'll probably be able

to have a very normal life, as long as you avoid the things that could

aggravate your condition. But you know all of that already.

I haven't drank tap water for years. My husband's an engineer and he's

worked on water purification projects for municipal utilities. " A little

bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing " , I've heard. Whatever. I know

enough so that I just won't drink tap water anymore. The water here in Las

Vegas isn't necessarily the most pure in the world but we do have both a

water purification system for drinking and cooking water and a water

conditioner for laundry and bathing. I don't like the taste of the

purified water and conditioned water is loaded with salt so it should be

avoided. We lived in Switzerland for 3 years and no one drinks tap water

in Europe as far as I could see. We could buy a case of litre bottles of

Evian across the border in France for equal to $5.00 and I developed a

taste for it. Here, it's almost expensive as wine! Stupid. It's only

water, after all. I agree, bars and restaurants shouldn't charge so much

for bottled water but the price is high because they can get away with it.

I have and I haven't been a writer if that makes sense. The first time I

was " published " was when I was 11 years old and wrote for a children's

publication. Since then I've had a newspaper column and a couple of

monthly columns in large international corporate news magazines. I also

wrote some articles for an English language magazine in Switzerland. I've

done some ad writing and lots of customer service and corporate technical

and training literature. I don't consider myself a writer because I've

never made enough money at it to support myself. Also, I haven't ever

taken writing courses. I don't have a feel for fiction but to me, writing

is the ultimate form of communication and almost an extension of my mind.

What you see is whatever's going on in my head at the time. It's my best

outlet and is wonderful emotional therapy for me.

Most or all of us who post here seem to have certain things in common. We

all have the gift of being able to communicate, the desire to communicate,

a feeling of concern for others, natural inquisitiveness and of course,

some tough obstacles to overcome. Three cheers for a great bunch of people.

Take care,

Geri