For some people, it takes a major wake up call for them to realize that their drinking has turned into alcoholism, and for these 12 people, that was certainly true:

#12. Until that moment.

“Doc asked how many drinks I have a night and I wasn’t sure how to answer. So, he asked “how many ounces” I consumed. I asked how many ounces are in a 750. He just paused and put down his pad and said, “a lot, you drink that every night?” He then ordered special blood tests and told me if I keep it up, I’ll kill myself. It happened so slowly. A martini a night, then 2 martinis, then some shots to get the baseline and a few martinis, then I just got into the habit of buying a 750 on the way home and polishing it off before I went to bed. He told me to stop for a day and I got heart palpitations and started shaking until I caved and went a bought a pint of vodka. Despite everything, it didn’t even occur to me until that moment that I was horribly addicted to alcohol.”

#11. Nobody seems to notice.

“I’m there.

I’m admitting this for the first time, but damn I have a problem.

I buy bottles of vodka and hide them around the house so my wife can’t find them, but I can easily access them with an excuse to go to the garage, or the basement.

I look for reasons to leave the house when I run out of booze, regardless of the time of day (9:00 AM is the earliest opening liquor store near me).

I can’t really enjoy beer anymore, it takes way too much to get me to a point where I feel anything. I buy high ABV beer if it’s a social occasion where cocktails aren’t the norm.

My large recycling bin’s bottom layer is probably 1/4 empty vodka bottles by the end of the week. I bury them down there so nobody sees them.

Doing things like mowing the lawn or watching a movie aren’t interesting without a few shots’ worth.

The scary part is that nobody seems to notice. I’m sure there are signs, but they are not frequent enough to raise a red flag.”

#10. The closest thing to a friend.

“Good afternoon, Joe, how are ya?”

“Oh not bad at all! Hey, I got to see my grandkids last weekend!”

“That’s great. Are they doing well?”

“Never better. Listen…this is hard to say, but…you know you drink too much, right?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“OK. Just…I don’t know…I’m not going to tell you what to do.”

“Well, I appreciate it, thanks.”

This conversation took place in front of a Beer Store. Joe is homeless. I’ve given him change so many times that he remembers me and at the time we were probably the closest thing to a friend either of us had.

TL;DR: When a homeless person questions the amount you drink, so should you.”

#9. A few cuts and bruises.

“Not particularly exciting just woke up after a massive bender with a few cuts and bruises and it dawned on me that I might have serious problem.”

#8. Re-evaluate everything.

“Got off work on a Friday, bought a 24 of beer, woke up Saturday with no beer, decided to re-evaluate everything. Now 8 months sober.”

#7. Waiting for the liquor store to open.

“I was waiting out a liquor store when they opened up at 9am.

(I was binging to counter act some stimulants. I cut them out and my desire to drink went with it. But I realized it was an issue that day).”

#6. When I started lying.

“Not an alcoholic, but probably when I started lying about not being an alcoholic.”

#5. “I don’t remember any of it.”

“It’s not that exciting. Two months ago I went out with a co-worker. We left the strip club and walked back to my place. My girlfriend and I were living together at that point and i didn’t want to disturb her so we decided to continue to drink in my parked car. At some point I blacked out and woke up in the morning laying on the floor next to my/our bed.

Turns out I ended up driving, black out drunk, all the way across town to a 7-11, to drop my co-worker off and than all the way back. About 10 km. The one moment of clarity I have from that evening is sitting in my running car, just outside of the 7-11, texting my angry gf. I went home and shouted at her. Don’t remember any of it.

She packed up her things once I passed out on the floor. When I woke up she drove off.”

#4. The shame.

“Not me but my dad. He said he had become ashamed of who he had become and didnt want to be like his dad. The last week before he quit and started AA, some days he was so hungover to take me to school so I just skipped, and his boss called him telling him to get his shit together. He’s been clean about a year now and the change in everybody’s lives is so fucking great. I’m really proud of him.”

#3. No ‘a-ha’ moment.

“Lots of people posting answers on this thread and finishing with “but I still drink”. Okay then. Well, as a guy with 6 years of sobriety who doesn’t drink alcohol anymore, I can try and shed some light on the question:

In my experience, there wasn’t ONE specific event that led me to see the light. Alcoholism is a gradual disease, and those “ah-ha” moments didn’t really appear. Events just piled up – it was always “just one bad night” or “a couple rough weeks”. I gave myself lots of excuses: I told myself that lots of people lived this way, or that I was just taking a career break to party, or that I DESERVED to have fun, etc, etc. I was in denial over what was gradually happening to my life. Over the period of a few years I’d quit my job and pretty much just stopped working, lost my long-time girlfriend who I loved, lost many friends and the few remaining people close to me were scared that I’d end up dead. I’d become persona non grata at events. My health was failing (withdrawal seizures are a bitch), I couldn’t start my day or end my day without hard liquor. I was broke, and I started considering some pretty scary alternatives for getting a hold of some cash. I was dying a slow death and every day I was a worse version of the kid I’d once been.

After being confronted with the possibility of rehab, I begrudgingly agreed – things couldn’t get worse, after all. I took home some good tools after 22 days in rehab, but I needed to remember to use those tools because things could get out of hand quickly. As a young man I had high hopes for myself. What happened to those dreams and when did I put them away? Can I start over and try again? What the hell should I do? I didn’t know, but I did know this was my chance to at least start TRYING to at least achieve a few of those goals.

After getting my sober legs under me, life didn’t magically turn around. I still had bills to pay, still was unemployed, and nobody threw me a parade for getting clean. I started gradually getting things together, just like things gradually fell apart. Eventually I made some major changes – I think that’s key in any recovery. Straight up sold my stuff, moved abroad, and changed my life 180 degrees. Today I live in the mountains of Central America. I learned to speak a second language, live sober, exercise and do my best to help others. I’ve still got tons of flaws and I’ve got a long way to go. But the journey is just beginning. Life is fun again, being alive is a gift, and no matter how bad my day is, I can always fall back on the fact that if I didn’t drink today, I will go to bed a winner.”

#2. Misery.

“Bought a handle of brandy (1.5 liters and I’m not a brandy man, I was budget buying my liquor and a fifth of Bushmills was $8 at the local liquor store while the handle was $15) after I’d had an unstable few days. My best friend had told me he was going to rehab for his own problems with addiction, and I lost my shit after subconsciously realizing that I was as far gone as him if not further. A few days later, I get the aforementioned handle and kill half of it in a few hours, pass out on my couch for another few hours, and then wake up and resume drinking while trying to 1. fight my friends, 2. tell my family and best friend that I hate them on the phone, 3. denigrate an ambulance driver after one of my friends thought I was going to get alcohol poisoning and called 911, 4. jump of my 2nd story balcony to see what would happen. I woke up the next day, my folks were flying in to town after a very terrifying set of phone calls from me and from my friend explaining the situation, and when they knocked on my door, I opened it ready with an excuse before something snapped in me and I blurted out “I’m an alcoholic” instead. I had been miserable for a long time up til this point, and the liquor only made me more miserable. I kept drinking to avoid the shakes and withdrawal, and I didn’t know any other way to live. That moment where I came clean to my folks was where I decided something needed to change. I was 24 then, and I went to rehab the next day. I’ve been clean since, and I celebrated my 1 year mark earlier this month.”

#1. What a friend said.

“My face started to swell.

I was at the grocery store reading labels with getting drunk in mind. I bought beers that I don’t like the taste of. Proceeded to get drunk that night.

I went to a party and a friend said I look like a drunk.

I quit. Cold turkey. I was turning into my father. And I am not turning into my father.

This was two months ago. I’ve lost 20 pounds since and feel great. My clarity of mind during interrogations the day is a noticeable difference.

I was never a black out drunk. Only thrown up 3 times in 25 years. But I was a 6 pack a day drunk, usually stretched from 5 to midnight. I enjoyed it. But I’m 40 now, and I’ve gotta keep my health and my children’s welfare I mind.”

The post 12 People Open up about the Moment They Realized They Were an Alcoholic appeared first on UberFacts.

Hearing that a loved one has passed is big, life-changing news and you can never predict how someone will react.

Read on to check out 15 people who definitely were not prepared.

#15. The ability to empathize.

“I work in ICU so I often have to tell families bad news. The most recent memory was a daughter telling me “this must be the hardest part of your job”. I was taken back just because despite the tragedy she was enduring, she still had the ability to empathize with what I also had to do.”

#14. Like a zombie.

“I was a med student in a case where an 11 year old child suddenly died during a routine orthopedic procedure for a broken arm. There were about 20 family members there with balloons and stuff. When the surgeon told them the news, they all started screaming and scattered, running in different directions around the hospital. One of them started clawing at me like a zombie. Definitely one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever witnessed.”

#13. Trying to hold it all in.

“I was at a delivery where both mom and baby were having problems. As we were saving baby the OR team was trying to save mom. We did, they didnt. As we were leaving with baby to the NICU the OR doc was telling dad and his family that his wife didnt make it. He saw his baby and asked when mom could begin breast feeding. Grandma fell to the floor crying but dad just had this look like he was just waking up and not hearing what was going on. Seeing him visit the NICU was just so sad, you could see him trying to hold it all in while visiting his baby.”

#12. Quiet shock.

“In inner city Detroit in the 80s, where I trained as surgeon, mostly knife & gun trauma, it was common for reactions to be violent. The organ procurement nurse was beaten up when he spoke with a family member about organ donation. Another time a family member punched & kicked dozens of holes in the walls up & down a corridor. Two brothers on hearing about the death of their third brother were vowing revenge. I got them to promise not to do it on a night I was on trauma call.

The worst were the parents of a young man killed while committing rape. Not only did they have to deal with the loss of their son, but the circumstances of his death were terrible. Quiet shock.”

#11. She was happy.

“Best was talking with the family matriarch.

Strong business woman whose children had taken over several businesses in the town. Very rich influential family.

We originally admitted her as a stroke but on further review found multiple brain metastasis. Family wanted everything done. This was a mentally alert woman who at 94 they wanted to have chemo and surgery.

I discussed her options with her including no aggressive treatment. She elected for this. She went into hospice and died peacefully a few months later.

She asked what I would do. Having just gone through this with my grandmother and grandfather the year before I gave her both sides of the story. Doing everything and buying a few months but dealing with surgery and illness. Or just pursuing comfort measures.

I think she was happy with the decision.

I think the family was upset with me for giving her that option.”

#10.  Slowly it sank in.

“I was working the burn unit. Guy comes in, MVC head on collision the other driver was drunk and crossed lanes. His wife was killed in the crash. Every time he woke up he asked where his wife was, and he had to be told. He would just start saying “42 years” and sobbing. I can’t imagine what it was like for that guy, having to remember every single time you wake up. He was in a lot of pain, AKA lots of dilaudid, which contributed to his confusion. Slowly over time it sank in. Very heartbreaking to watch.”

#9. I couldn’t help but grin.

“Deputy here. I’ve been to a quite a few deaths and I’ve only seen one that was “happy”. The husband was a lifetime alcoholic and was on hospice for various related illnesses. When we arrived he was DOA. She told us he went to go to the bathroom gasped and literally dropped dead.

She was at first sad. The more she talked about him we could tell he was a real bastard. She pretty much couldn’t make a move with out him. He wouldn’t let the grand kids come over and they lived next door. When the funeral home came to collect the body they had difficulty getting him loaded up. The wife remarked “Even dead he still finds a way to be a pain,” I couldn’t help but grin when see said it.”

#8. He self-discharged.

“Work in orthopaedics. Had a car crash involving 7 family members. Youngest was a 9 year old with open fractures to both legs. Rushed straight into theatre, but the child had developed rapid onset sepsis, mixed with some blood lost and a ?PE. Died on the table before surgery could begin properly. Despite a large number of staff as you can imagine, we couldn’t do any more. The father was the last to find out, as suffered a fractured skull and was moved to a different trauma hospital (crash occured halfway between the two hospitals, patients were split up due to rush/need at the time). He had a ?bleed on the brain and was in ICU for a week. Wife didn’t tell him until he left ICU out of fear it would set him off/hinder recovery.

I heard when he found out, he self discharged and attempted suicide. I hope he is alright now and getting help, but unfortunately being in a different area it’s hard to find out. I believe it was actually his wife that was driving.

Finally as a side note, please ensure that your headrest in a car is adjusted correctly. I see a lot of head, skull and neck injuries frequently because of this. Only today I was seeing a fractured C5 because of this. It’s something your only have to do once if your driving the same car all the time, but in combination with a seatbelt it really is there for a reason, not just for comfort.”

#7. I think about her and that night

“EMT here. Had a few of these, but the worst was one I observed indirectly. We had a young woman in her twenties killed instantly in a high-speed collision. Same old story, car vs. tree, the tree won. Girl was alone in the car, cold November night, sad way to die. The crash was so bad that we thought we should have the car towed back to the firehouse so the FD could do the extrication behind closed doors – we figured she’d just come apart when the car was pulled away from her. But she stayed together, mostly, and they loaded her into our ambulance to go to the hospital to pronounce her – we were only basic EMTs and pronouncement wasn’t in our protocols.

We get to the ER and park up front, outside of the bays usually reserved for ambulances to back up into – no need to take up space with an already obviously dead patient. One of the ER docs came out to the ambulance and pronounced her there and told us to sit tight, the family was coming. Apparently all they’d been told was that their daughter had been in an accident, and that they needed to get to the hospital right away. So we sat in the ambulance with a dead girl under a sheet. She was only a few years older than me, and I knew her vaguely from around town. It was weird.

A pickup truck comes screaming into the ER parking lot a few minutes later, and a man and a woman about my parents’ age come tumbling out before it even stops and go running into the ER. The parents. A few minutes later the lights in the family waiting room, which is right across the sidewalk from our ambulance, come on, and a nurse brings the parents in. We can’t hear anything, but we can see the exchange – have a seat please, the doctor will be right with you. She leaves and closes the door, and we see the parents alone, terrified at what’s to come. The mother is wringing her hands and pacing, the father is standing stiff and stoic. This is going to be bad.

We can see the doc who pronounced her coming down the hall, with a nurse and a social worker in tow. He gets to the door, hesitates a second, straightens his tie, and turns to the women with him. We can’t hear him, of course, but we knew he said, “Ready?”

He opens the door and the parents whip around. We see him introduce himself, and give the short speech. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but your daughter died at the scene of the accident…” The mother melted. I’ve never seen a human just dissolve like that, like her bones had suddenly turned to jelly. The father caught her before she hit the floor, and he looked like he’d been hit with a sack of cement in the gut. He doubled over but held onto her, got her to the couch, and we just sat there watching this horrible silent movie playing out in front of us.

It felt shitty to intrude on their private moment, and we talked about it in the cab of the ambulance. In a way, we felt like part of that family, at least for the short time that we took care of their daughter. We treated her body with as much respect as we could, we carefully transported her to the hospital so there would be no further damage, and we kept her safe while they were en route, and we made sure she was never alone.

That was nearly 40 years ago, and that girl has been dead twice as long as she was alive. I think about her and that night every once in a while, and now that I’m a father of kids about that age, it’s too painful to bear. That was only one of hundreds of accidents I responded too over my EMS and firefighting career, and it wasn’t even the worst one. But it was the one that had the most impact on me, and I often wonder how that poor family coped with it.”

#6. A rare condition.

“It was the 40-something year old mother of 2 who had been admitted for nausea and vomiting and died of multisystem organ failure (heart attacks, strokes, ischemic colitis, pulmonary embolism, etc) because of a rare clotting disorder than decided to manifest itself all at once for the first time in her. Telling a family that someone that young and previously healthy that not only is the mother going to die, but that they should have their doctor look at screening them for a rare condition is no fun.”

#5. Unfortunately.

“When I worked in a large inner city ER this family had brought in their grandmother who had went to take a nap in the family living room on her family chair. Well when she didn’t wake up for 8-10 hours, the family activated EMS and brought her to me. She had been dead for half the day at this point which was very obvious so we called it, the lady was stiff at this point. When I called the family into the room (all 20 of them) to tell them their 88yo without a decent organ in her body on dialysis had indeed died they accused me first of lying then second of murdering her. Police had to be called as a particularly boisterous 14yo female was being very threatening and repeating what a lot of families say “she was fine this morning, people don’t JUST DIE.’ Unfortunately that is how everyone dies.”

#4. Instead of the reality.

“Thankfully I wasn’t the only one in the room, but we spent 3 hours on and off explaining to a family that we couldn’t transfer their deceased child to another hospital. I think they believed the kid was in a vegetative state, and that we just gave up on them, instead of the reality that their kid was dead.”

#3. A good few hours.

“Previous Nursing assistant on a respiratory ward. Elderly male patient decided to willingly opt out of respiratory support machine. Lovely man, his time inevitably came around 6 hours later, early in the morning. His granddaughter (young girl around mid-20s) the only family member in the hospital at the time was so devastated she climbed into the bed with him and wouldn’t leave the ward. Endless crying, shrieking and asking for her Grandad to wake up.. heart breaking stuff. Staff and doctors tried to coerce her to take some time outside but she wouldn’t leave the bed. Eventually the rest of the family arrived and talked her out but took a good few hours.”

#2. Him leaving her notes.

“Worked on a medical-surgical for a few years at the beginning of my career as a nurse. Sure, we had a few patients here and there that were just there for observation.

My first cancer patient I lost in my career seemed like one of those. When he was admitted to our floor, he was always cheerful, polite, and never admitted feeling ill in any way. One of the nicest people you could want to meet. I remember him because of this. Dude had stage 4b lung cancer, and never once asked for ANYTHING.

Over the course of a few months, I got to know him better. As it turns out, he thought he had a bad cold and found out he was dying shortly. It’s shitty, but that’s life sometimes I suppose. It ain’t always pretty. When he found out, he seemed at peace with it all. Then he began working like a madman from his bed.

Every time I went in to his room to check on him or give him meds, he was writing in a notebook. Only once did he receive visits whole he was with us, and it was his wife, who was brought by a friend. She’d never learned to drive because she never wanted or needed to. Dude spent his entire life taking care of her, completely and totally. As it turns out, all the writing in notebooks was him leaving her notes of how to do things. He’d literally taken care of her since they were in high school. She didn’t even know how to use a dish washer. Nothing.

I think of him from time to time, when I’ve had a rough go with love in my life. The times I asked this man about his wife were some of the few times I saw his face light up with delight. It’s nice to think that love like that exists.”

#1. His desperate pleas.

“This was three years ago, when I’d recently started training in the hospital, and I was placed in a consultation room for a week. The doctor had told me the next patient had received many treatments for her bowel cancer but the cancer was coming back too fast. There was nothing the hospital could offer her anymore, so that day we were to tell her how she only had an estimated three montha left to live.

They walked in the room and she looked as if she already understood what we were about to say, but the husband was distraught. He was in tears, and I had to do my best to offer advice and comfort as the doctor had already gone back to his paperwork. It was one of the most harrowing experiences I’ve had in the hospital to date, hearing his desperate pleas of whether there was anything we could do to help. His wife did her best to console him too, but I could see she needed the support too.

I’m really sorry I couldn’t do anything to help, old friend. I hope your wife rests peacefully.”

The post Doctors Share Most Memorable Reactions People Had to Their Loved Ones Passing appeared first on UberFacts.