Sunday

Read in the papers that 900 people over 65 are admitted to hospital every day in the UK through binge drinking. Was talking about that last night and said I thought it might be to do with pain and often having to cope with a lot of hardship by yourself.

But .. having said that .. there must also be a social factor influenced by .. fashion basically .. cause the figure has risen by two thirds since 2002 .. unless the generation of people going into pensionable age just drink more.

Can't tell because the figures weren't broken down into smaller age groups.

My "real life" friends are a mixed bunch but as far as I know there's only one person who has a drink problem .. she's in her 70's and really has drunk her way out of our lives. She's isolated herself with a bottle or two now and no one sees her much anymore .. just by chance meetings in the street. People have tried to help but she doesn't want to know cause she's addicted to the bottle.

Last time I saw her she was not in a good way I must say. It's really screwing her brain up. Shame because, by all accounts, she used to be a very nice person until she decided to flood her brain continuously with alcohol. Now, she's often pretty nasty and doesn't know fact from fiction. When she's not too drunk she'll apologise for the drinking and how she behaves but she obviously has no intention of stopping it. She knows from her old job how to get help and what the alcohol will be doing to her.

I don't know how long she's been drinking. I think things got very much worse while I was going in and out of hospital so I never really got a chance to get to know her well but from what I did know she was so nice and kind. It's a real tragedy seeing what's happened.

Alcohol can cause so much misery. Someone told me about a night out a couple of weeks ago where so many people were just off their heads with booze and, he presumed, pills and were yelling abuse at each other. Lovely night out, huh!!!!!! Just what you'd plan ... not .. I'd think. And, what a waste of money.

One of the problems if you drink a lot is that you never really learn to cope that well in social situations without a head full of external chemicals. Not to mention what it does to ur liver etc.

Still, I guess we're all responsible for ourselves ... however difficult it is. I don't know why the woman I mentioned started drinking. I have a feeling that it might've been when she was widowed. And I can understand how that happened but it's totally wrecked her life. I don't think there's a chance of things improving as she won't get help and she is someone who knows all about what it's doing to her. I think she's just given up .. thinks it's not worth the effort at her age. I don't know if she has any real idea just how bad things are now at times. I really was shocked last time I saw her.

I really have no idea why so many people just a bit older than me and up are drinking like they are now. Or, why the hospital admissions have soared the way they have. Up by two thirds in about 6 years!!!!

900 per day!!!!!

I did wonder how many are repeat admissions .. that wasn't mentioned in the article either, along with the number being broken down into smaller age groups. Even with that the fact that it's gone up by such a lot so quickly is surprizing.