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GIRL WHO BOOZED AT 12 NEEDS NEW LIVER AT 20

BrianKonarsMac said:
not to mention the fact the 90% of europeans are pure lushes, i bet she saw nothing wrong with drinking, and had no problem getting liquor in the UK. it's amazing how casual drinking is to them, after doing anything, it's time for a (PISS WARM! eww) beer. my sister is getting her masters at oxford and i've been there on many occasions, so it's not like this is some random stereotype, i've seen it first hand. to support this, try buying a coke and try buying a beer. the coke is more expensive, because demand is less, where as beer is nearly as cheap (cheaper than bottled water actually) as water there.
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WTF? You're using a college town as an example of national drinking habits? By that standard, no person in America is able to walk a straight line on a Saturday night after finals week.

And your cost comparisons are weak. If soft drinks were less desirable, they'd be less expensive, not more expensive. And bottled water is as much or more than beer here in the US too.
 
BrianKonarsMac said:
then let us all be thankful that it IS NOT up to you.

not to mention the fact the 90% of europeans are pure lushes, i bet she saw nothing wrong with drinking, and had no problem getting liquor in the UK. it's amazing how casual drinking is to them, after doing anything, it's time for a (PISS WARM! eww) beer. my sister is getting her masters at oxford and i've been there on many occasions, so it's not like this is some random stereotype, i've seen it first hand. to support this, try buying a coke and try buying a beer. the coke is more expensive, because demand is less, where as beer is nearly as cheap (cheaper than bottled water actually) as water there.
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Where did you go in Oxford?
Because seriously, I want to avoid there.

My local...pint = £1.70 (£2.50 after 8 on Fridays and Saturdays)
Coke = £0.50 for a half (£1.20 after 8 Fri/Sat)
Bottled Water = £0.75 a bottle (...never asked...).
Tap water = £Free (£Free after 8 Fri/Sat :) )

In seriousness however, you went to Oxford university, and drank in a student area. Students like drinking. I know 23 year olds mates who get ID'd here (where I live in the UK - also a student area), and they certainly aren't babyfaces. That's like me saying all Ferraris break. This isn't a stereotype, I saw one break once.

AppleMatt
 
What is the legal drinking age in the UK?

I really wonder why those who do sympathize rationalize her drinking because of her age. Granted I am American, but even at 12, I knew alcohol was damaging to the body. First thing they start preaching in Health class - at least in the midwest - is that it impairs the body and mind (first). All the drunk driver presentations from guest speakers from junior high up were enough to make me aware of the impact alcohol can have and as a result I took and held an anti-drinking stance (for the most part) until I was 20. Peer pressure kicked in enough to get me to drink socially despite the rampant alcoholism in my family.

I guess what I am getting at is yes, the girl had a problem and as a result has a bigger problem. BUT...she was able to acquire the liquor enough to binge drink her liver to death which I am guessing would be enough for someone to take notice and recognize someone in need of help. So if she was sly enough to get the liquor, she had to know that drinking compulsively was going to damage her health/mind/life. 5 years of binge drinking is enough, no matter what age. Hell I got a good two years in and suffer from GERD as a result.

I just can't sympathize until I learn more about the situation. Like where she drank, with whom, how she acquired the booze, etc...

A lame analogy is that if you are going to be sexually active, you better be prepared for disease and pregnancy. I am sure they teach that to 12 year olds???
 
kingjr3 said:
Whats the legal driving age?

I feel so uncultured. :eek:
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17 for cars. 16 for bikes.

You can get married at 16 also.

Not sure what the age is for owning guns, but that's not all that relevant over here.
 
gwuMACaddict said:
she had 8 YEARS (YEARS!) for someone to tell her the ramifications of drinking. trust me, she knew it wasn't healthy.
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Hate to say it, but were you there? At that young age it is hard for most of us to truly look at our mortality and our actions.

We are also talking about addictions, and that enters into a whole another thread.
 
I'd have to say that this is largely the fault of her parents. Seriously, I may live a sheltered life, but it isn't that easy for a 12 year old to not only get her hands on a regular enough supply of alchol to cause liver damage, but to conceal that level of drinking from her parents for YEARS. She really should have known better, but then 12 year olds are pretty stupid (heck, 20 year olds are pretty stupid) when it comes to making rational decisions, and obviously her parents weren't exactly providing great role models. They should definitely be the ones to provide her with the liver.

Its worth noting that although you can certainly hammer at yourself with booze until you break your own body, actual alcohol addiction (as in can't-stop alcoholism versus heavy college drinking, for example) is apparently more of a biological thing than a choice. Some people are predisposed to develop a chemical addiction to the substance, just as people develop an addiction to heroin or nicotine, and it's not something they can stop without help. This girl may have been in that group, making it a lot harder for her to stop even if she did realize it was a bad idea. Not that this would excuse her parents in any way, of course.

Contrast that with dumb-as-paste college binge drinkers who are perfectly capable of going for weeks without a drink but prefer to see how close to death by alcohol poisoning they can get on a regular basis. No sympathy from me for them.

I do wish people would recognize alcohol as the fairly strong drug it is, though; it's not the evil that the Ignoble Experiment made it out to be (heck, coming from an Italian background, I grew up being allowed to drink *a bit* from a young age if I wanted, which I didn't) but it's more dangerous in quantity than marijuana.
 
gwuMACaddict said:
i'd hate to see her get a liver for her stupidity over someone who was born with some sort of disease that they couldnt have prevented
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Totally agree with you on this point.

People need to be held accountable for their actions.

Sushi
 
BrianKonarsMac said:
not to mention the fact the 90% of europeans are pure lushes, i bet she saw nothing wrong with drinking, and had no problem getting liquor in the UK. it's amazing how casual drinking is to them, after doing anything, it's time for a (PISS WARM! eww) beer. my sister is getting her masters at oxford and i've been there on many occasions, so it's not like this is some random stereotype, i've seen it first hand. to support this, try buying a coke and try buying a beer. the coke is more expensive, because demand is less, where as beer is nearly as cheap (cheaper than bottled water actually) as water there.
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I fail to see you point.

The US is no different. I drink very little, so I was often the desiginated driver during flight school. Many clubs that we visited a simple plain coke cost twice what a hard drink or beer cost.

And in your case you are looking at college towns. Suggestion, don't visit Panama City during Spring Break. The alcohol flows in that city during that time. Seen some folks do some really crazy/stupid stuff like playing superman. Only, unlike the man of steel, most normal folks can't fly -- even when lubbed up! :eek:

Sushi
 
Converted2Truth said:
If you would be so kind as to provide a link to a hi-res version of your avitar... Your beautiful! (or whoever it is is)
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Thanks for the compliment, but I am a he.

The aviatar is a friend of mine from some years ago.

Sorry, but at this time I don't have a link/web site for you to DL from.

Sushi
 
There is an aspect of this situation that has been completely ignored by the discussion thus far. Aside from the issue of who sympathizes with the girl and who doesn't, there is an additional reason to deny treatment to this girl.

As I understand it, livers are not all that easy to get. It takes years on a waiting list (at least for my brother's gf it did). If you have destroyed your own liver due to alcoholism, doctors will purportedly deny treatment outright. The reason? You may have a new liver, but you're still an alcoholic. Why provide something so rare to someone who is very likely to destroy it, when there aren't enough livers for people who were born with liver defects?

I personally sympathize with the girl. It's not that I would opt to let her die if livers were easy to aquire. But they aren't, and even if she never touches another drop of alcohol she will always be an alcoholic. As such, it is very likely that she won't stay dry.

Perhaps in a few years doctors will be able to grow her a new liver from here own cells and she can have it replaced as often as she wants.

-kev
 
khammack said:
There is an aspect of this situation that has been completely ignored by the discussion thus far. Aside from the issue of who sympathizes with the girl and who doesn't, there is an additional reason to deny treatment to this girl.

As I understand it, livers are not all that easy to get. It takes years on a waiting list (at least for my brother's gf it did). If you have destroyed your own liver due to alcoholism, doctors will purportedly deny treatment outright. The reason? You may have a new liver, but you're still an alcoholic. Why provide something so rare to someone who is very likely to destroy it, when there aren't enough livers for people who were born with liver defects?

I personally sympathize with the girl. It's not that I would opt to let her die if livers were easy to aquire. But they aren't, and even if she never touches another drop of alcohol she will always be an alcoholic. As such, it is very likely that she won't stay dry.

Perhaps in a few years doctors will be able to grow her a new liver from here own cells and she can have it replaced as often as she wants.

-kev
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Liver transplants can come from living donors - that is, someone doesn't have to die to provide a liver. Essentially, the donor's liver is sectioned off and part is given to the recipient, and within weeks both livers grow to their nominal size.

Which should mean that availability is higher than for other organs (say like a heart or lungs), but it still relies on compatibility.
 
edesignuk said:
17 for cars. 16 for bikes.

You can get married at 16 also.

Not sure what the age is for owning guns, but that's not all that relevant over here.
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eD - you gotta be careful what you say around these yanks or they'll start coming on day trips to the UK thinking they can pick up a few guns - and then someone will go too far, hiding 100's all around their cars on the ferry back home...

Why do american's think we drink warm beer - and then critisise us for it, when the best they can come up with is Budweiser? (sorry - probably for another forum - and yes, I'm sharpening my claws)

I certainly haven't been drinking since the age of 12, but I know some who have been drinking from quite a young age - and sure as heck aren't gonna have their livers dropping out anytime soon.

I also read that article in the times that mentioned binge drinking among UK females under 15/18/21 (i forget which) was up 9% over 10 years or so... (OK ok, i forgot most of the figures) whereas it was up 4% - 20%-24%. Infact, I just found the article here but I'm not rewriting my entire paragraph!

I think teenagers have a lot to drink about these days, being one - and a student I guess I have the most to drink about...! But just to put it into perspective it is NOT easy to get alcohol in this country, especially at this time of year (for some reason - in the summer, they seem to relax - or maybe it's just me). Went out with an old girlfriend the other night - she's 20, i'm 18. She had no ID and we couldn't get into ANY pub in her whole home high street (well, we gave up after 4).

Sorry, but I feel I have a lot of firsthand knowledge...

Carry on

Hob

P.S - after re-reading the article, I've decided I really really really dislike tabloids. Girls don't binge drink because they're copying celebrities. If anything, they do it cos us men are so unattractive they have to be half cut before they'll... well, I'll leave that thought there. It is a worrying trend... but if some reports are to be believe soon the women will be dominating in every aspect of life. An exciting prospect for me, as that's really what I'm into... ;)
 
BrianKonarsMac said:
then let us all be thankful that it IS NOT up to you.

not to mention the fact the 90% of europeans are pure lushes, i bet she saw nothing wrong with drinking, and had no problem getting liquor in the UK. it's amazing how casual drinking is to them, after doing anything, it's time for a (PISS WARM! eww) beer. my sister is getting her masters at oxford and i've been there on many occasions, so it's not like this is some random stereotype, i've seen it first hand. to support this, try buying a coke and try buying a beer. the coke is more expensive, because demand is less, where as beer is nearly as cheap (cheaper than bottled water actually) as water there.
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Well thank you Mr Sweeping Generalisation. What you've just said is like saying 90% Americans are gay just because you stayed in a certain part of San Francisco for a while.

Most Europeans handle alcohol very responsibly, don't get absolutely slaughtered all the time and get up fine the next day for work. Some do overdo it but just because you've hung out with a bunch of students isn't actually representative of the population as a whole.
 
hob said:
Why do american's think we drink warm beer - and then critisise us for it, when the best they can come up with is Budweiser? (sorry - probably for another forum - and yes, I'm sharpening my claws)
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Walk into most bars in the US or in the UK and you'll find most people drinking flavourless mass-produced lager. Miller, Coors, Bud in the US and Becks, Stella, Bud in the UK with some Fosters/1664/Carling thrown in for a change.

I've found it's generally easier to find a microbrewery in a US city than it is in the UK and get some good local beers (and often, bars in a city will have a local beer on tap - Anchor Steam and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale spring to mind in San Francisco).

The UK in general does have a problem with alcohol. There's a general perception that if you go out at a weekend, you haven't had a good night out unless you got absolutely hammered. The culture in England of last orders at 1045 means that people try to fit lots of drinking into a short period of time, often with little food to cushion it. It's not hard to buy alcohol underage - I was never carded in the UK but I'm still carded in the US - and how drunk you can get is still something to boast about.

Even after the office Christmas party, people rather than talking about what fun they had or dancing, are talking about how drunk they managed to get and how bad they felt the morning after. The two girls who ended up in hospital for alcohol poisoning don't even seem that embarrassed about it...
And no, I'm not against drinking - I was at the Christmas party, I had a few drinks from the free bar and when the evening started to degenerate into how many shots can you get down, I left :rolleyes:
 
Applespider said:
The two girls who ended up in hospital for alcohol poisoning don't even seem that embarrassed about it...
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Curiously, I've never been hospitalised for alcohol poisoning and I don't know anyone who has. Maybe your office parties are a bit more raucous than mine!
:eek:
 
caveman_uk said:
Curiously, I've never been hospitalised for alcohol poisoning and I don't know anyone who has.
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Haha I do, well we all thought he was at first.
We matched drinks all night (how cute) and suddenly he just collapsed, bouncers stuck him in an ambulance and sent him to hospital. They did a blood test and it turned out his drink had been spiked with some random sedative, he was well out of it for the day after so they kept him in. As we were drunk (thought we were) we told them we felt awful too. After persuasion they did blood tests on us, we'd all been spiked. So obviously we use this as an ideal opportunity to remind him how weak he is.

I've collapsed from drinking too much, but only once, and I felt so goddamnawful all that night and the next day that I swore never to do it again :)

AppleMatt
 
Being an alcoholic would make it more dificult for her to get a liver transplant here in the US. Though it sounds by the article that she has quite, a very important part of her history. Because liver tissue has the ability to regenerate, her best bet would be if she would have a close realtive as a living donor.

Something needs to be done to stem the tide of binge drinking in teenagers. Although there are so many that are. It just goes to show that not many are vunerable to this illness.
 
edesignuk said:
17 for cars. 16 for bikes.

You can get married at 16 also.

Not sure what the age is for owning guns, but that's not all that relevant over here.
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Can we get married at 16? I thought it was 18... hmm.

AppleMatt sure knows his stuff though. Go him! I think most drs would readily replace the liver. Particularly if she has been dry for the past 3 years. She has a lot of life to lose if she doesn't get the op (remember most liver transplants are for cirrhotic livers - usually after the 5th decade) and hopefully not too much risk of her messing up her new liver.

Good luck to her and I hope this helps her turn her life around...
 
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