Doctors are seeing more young patients like Martin, people in their 20s and 30s with symptoms of acute liver disease related to alcohol consumption.
Those of you who have read
my testimony of salvation know that when I got saved I was struggling with alcohol and attending AA meetings. Those of you who know me on a personal level know that the struggle to stay sober continued even after getting saved. I know how hard it is to get off of America's favorite legal drug, alcohol, which is really nothing more than liquid opiates.
"Whiskey and beer are all right in their place, but their place is in hell.’" Billy Sunday
Alcohol is rammed into our consciousness on a daily basis, ads for alcohol are at all sporting events, on nearly every radio station, certainly on every television station, on the majority of web sites that serve ads, and line our nation's highways on enormous billboards displays. Many parents, even many Christian parents, condone alcohol consumption and here in the enlightened 21st century is still considered a beloved "rite of passage" when a child comes of legal age. But here on NTEB, we'll tell you the truth about alcohol from the Bible's perspective, and here it is.
- ALCOHOL CAUSES PHYSICAL DESTRUCTION: "Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine. Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder." Proverbs 23:29-32 (KJB)
- ALCOHOL BRINGS DOWN THE STRONGEST OF PEOPLE: "Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink:Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him!" Isaiah 5:22,23 (KJB)
- ALCOHOL BRINGS SHARED MISERY: "Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness!" Habakkuk 2:15 (KJB)
- ALCOHOL WILL MOCK AND DECEIVE YOU: "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise." Proverbs 20:1 (KJB)
No, Jesus did not drink any alcohol in the Bible, not one drop, you won't find a single verse to support that. And that first miracle at the wedding feast? Yes, Jesus turned the water into wine, wine from the Throne Room that tasted like nothing else they were drinking, and seemed to have the curious effect of sobering people up instead of intoxicating them.
"Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth." 3 John 1:2 (KJB)
On a positive note, if you have been battling alcohol and want to try and reverse some of the damage that has been done to your body, please visit the
NTEB Health and Wellness section to see the many natural ways to restore your healthy and vitality. God wants you to be healthy in your body as well as in your heart and in your soul.
They were young. They thought they had time. Then they nearly died of liver disease.
Although Rachel Martin would never deny she had a drinking problem,
she figured years would pass before it would take a toll on her health. After all, she had not yet hit 40 and she had managed to eke out two years of complete sobriety about a decade ago. Even when she was drinking, she would hit the bottle hard for three weeks but then go cold turkey for a week.
So when Martin started feeling off about a year and a half ago, she tried to ignore the symptoms. She lost her appetite, her skin itched, and as she put it, she lost her waist as fluid accumulated in her abdomen. For four months she continued to drink, but in mid-March 2019, she decided she was done.
The next day she finally went to the doctor and found out she had cirrhosis of the liver, something that did not surprise her, given her internet-aided self-diagnosis.
What did surprise her, however, was what her doctor said: If she did not stop drinking she might die within a month. Even if she did quit, she might not make it three months.
“You know it’s bad for you, you know it’s not healthy at all whatsoever, but you think, 'Oh, I have no family history of this,' ” said the Bloomington resident, who is now 39. “I know people that drink more than I do, and they’re fine. I have years before I have to worry about this.”
Doctors are seeing more patients like Martin, people in their 20s and 30s with symptoms of acute liver disease related to alcohol consumption. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism published a
study in January that found that from 1999 to 2017 the number of alcohol-related deaths per year doubled, rising from 35,914 to 72,558. Just under a third of those resulted from liver disease.
Similarly,
a study in the British Medical Journal published in 2018 also noted a dramatic increase in deaths in the United States from cirrhosis from 1999 to 2016. In that time period, people ages 25 to 34 saw the highest increase.
“There is an epidemic of alcoholism and alcohol use disorder that I think is hiding behind the opioid crisis,” said Dr. Naga Chalasani, head of hepatology at
Indiana University Health. “Alcohol consumption has risen in this country. ... Everything is sort of going in the wrong direction. There are more people drinking, and the people who drink are drinking more.”
Many of those who wind up requiring care do not fit the stereotypical image of an alcoholic. They may be highly productive individuals who work and have families until suddenly they find themselves facing an acute health crisis brought on by alcohol-related liver disease, such as acute hepatitis or cirrhosis.
The trend is particularly pronounced in middle-aged women, where studies suggest that high-risk drinking is the highest it has ever been, Chalasani said.
A 2019 study by University of Michigan researchers that looked at more than 100 million Americans with private insurance found a 50% increase in the prevalence of alcohol-related cirrhosis in women from 2009 to 2015.
The people getting sick are not necessarily the people you might expect.
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