It started as a simple question over a glass of wine, which, in hindsight, was a terrible choice. I’d always been one to enjoy a drink, but I began to notice a growing discomfort in my stomach, a gnawing pain that seemed to linger longer than usual. Little did I know, this was the beginning of a challenging journey with alcoholic gastritis. My first encounter with the term “alcoholic gastritis” was not in a medical textbook but from a frantic search on Google. The pain, an uninvited guest that would not leave, led...

I never imagined that something as seemingly innocuous as my social drinking habit could lead me down a path to such intense suffering. It started subtly—just a nagging, dull ache in my legs that I tried to ignore. But soon, the pain became overwhelming, and I found myself grappling with what I later learned was alcoholic myopathy. The symptoms were relentless. Muscle pain from alcoholic myopathy, especially in my legs and shoulders, was something I couldn’t brush off. I’d wake up each day with a new kind of pain,...

It was a crisp autumn morning when I first felt the gnawing unease that something was amiss. I’d always been the life of the party, enjoying my drinks with abandon, but as the years wore on, the after-effects began to change. The haze I woke up to every morning wasn’t just a hangover; it was the beginning of a much more insidious problem. The term "hepatic encephalopathy" was one I’d only heard in passing, but suddenly it was being used to describe my reality. It’s a condition where the liver’s inability to detoxi...

I can still recall the moment the doctor looked me straight in the eye and said, "You have alcoholic hepatitis." Those words hit me like a ton of bricks. Until that point, I had heard about liver issues and liver failure from alcohol, but they were just abstract concepts, things that happened to other people. I never thought it would be me. But there I was, sitting in the clinic, hearing about how my liver was on the verge of failure, and I had to face the consequences of my actions. Alcohol had been a part of my ...

I never thought I’d find myself in the ER, hooked up to machines, trying to explain why I couldn’t stop shaking after just a few drinks. It wasn’t until much later that I learned how dangerous this path was. What hit me hardest was when the doctor mentioned how individuals with chronic alcoholism are predisposed to complications that could be fatal ("individuals with chronic alcoholism are predisposed to"). I never saw myself as someone who could face that reality, but the warning signs were already there, starting...

The day my hands started tingling, I didn't think much of it. A little numbness, some pins and needles—nothing too alarming, or so I thought. But when the sensation spread to my feet and began to intensify, I knew something was off. That’s when I faced the reality that my years of drinking might have done more damage than I realized. A visit to the doctor confirmed my fears. I was diagnosed with alcoholic polyneuropathy, a condition I had never even heard of before. The doctor explained that my excessive drinking ...

When I first heard the words "alcoholic cardiomyopathy," it felt like a punch to the gut. The diagnosis was a wake-up call that forced me to confront the reality of my lifestyle choices. I never thought my drinking habits could lead to something as serious as heart damage, but there I was, sitting in the doctor's office, trying to wrap my head around what this meant for my future. I had always assumed that heart problems were something that happened to other people—those with a history of heart disease or a geneti...