Hey,
I'm with Keif' on most of these subjects. If you're discussing deaths per 100k people Cigarettes are the king with something like 500-600 users dying. Thats per one study and includes people who smoke for a few years then stop. For life long smokers the death rate is about 1/3. And the 2/3s who aren't killed, I don't know exact numbers, but most have horrible effects, if you're in the USA they used to run commercials of the long time smoker and would show a lady talking with a voice box, and then smoking through her neck after a tracheotomy, there were many other iterations of these commercials. They were, maybe still are many iterations of these commercials (I don't watch much tv and when I do it's from DVR and I skip the commercials.) And unlike the anti-weed commercials that I hope have stopped since they had no basis in science showing much worse, and impossible things, those cigarette commercials were accurate.
That said alcohol was #2 in deaths per 100k with something like 180 per 100k. That may not sound too bad, but again that # number includes all the college kids who went overboard a couple years and then stopped any alcohol use, maybe 1 drink is ok (if you can control you're usage, otherwise no amount is safe), if you're a large man 2 can still be considered ok, not great but better then nothing. (though thats a lot of pointless calories.) The reality for life or longterm heavy drinkers (life long usually meaning dying in their 40s--50s, 60s if you won the generic lottery for a heavy alcoholic.) And if you think heavy drinker doesn't apply to you, a heavy drinker can mean as little as 8 drinks a day, someone drinking 6 drinks per day would be a moderate - heavy alcoholic, (for a sleight short male it'd be heavy, for any size of a woman it'd be heavy drinking since since women don't metabolize alcohol as well as men, and are of course usually smaller then men already, so ladies don't try to keep up with you male friends. If myself and a woman my same height and weight, have 4 shots each together. The female, again no matter what size she was, compared to the male will be drunker than the male unless the their alcoholics and have tolerance,) also what is a drink? In the USA it's defined as a standard 1.5 ounce shot of 40% alcohol, I don't remember what it is for wine, but it's less than most people fill their glass to (I think it's a 5 ounces of 12 or maybe 13% wine, don't hold me to that exact number, but its much less wine per glass than most realize.) And perhaps most importantly, especially with the craft beer revolution, 1 drink is a 12 ounce 5% alcohol beer. So if you go out and have 3 pints of some IPA or some type of dark beer that's 7.5% alcohol. 3 pints drinks are actually 4 drinks for a 5% beer, but most are more than that, so going back to a 7.5% beer, 3 pints is actually 6 units of alcohol. So 3 pints is all ready a dangerous level if drunk on any sort of regular basis.
And yup, while 1 person takes acid and runs naked into a freeway and is killed, the media is going to go crazy about the dangers of acid, meanwhile, I know at UCSB, a single, fairly prestigious college, 2-4 kids die every year from getting drunk and doing something stupid like doing pull-ups on a branch that hangs out over the cliffs, that can't support their weight, and that's it, goodbye life.
The VERY picky thing I'd say is just slightly wrong from Keif's post is that Wernicke-Korsakoffs encephalopathy isn't actually caused directly by alcohol, it's caused by thiamine (Vitamin B1) deficiency, but guess what, alcohol depletes stores of thiamine, and the vast majority of Wernicke's-Korsakoffs cases are all are from alcohol induced B1 deficiency, something like 99% of cases. So for those of you who are alcoholics (which again could be as little as 3 pints of a heavy beer a day) and can't stop, HARM REDUCTION TIP: start taking Vitamin b1 (thiamine) supplements at least once a day, once at night and once in the morning would be better. Don't look at the bottle that says it has 300% of your needed daily value of B1, if you're an alcoholic you're 300% B1 supplement is still likely not enough thiamine, even taken every day. I'd take that once in the morning, and again at night. And to briefly describe Wernicke-Korsacoffs syndrome, patients don't walk around, they slowly shuffle around, just walking around back at forth. And also, I could work with a patient every day for years, and every day he'd ask who I was, where he was, if they could see their wife (who died 30 years ago, assuming they remember her at all) showing a patient a mirror can cause terror in them, since they might think they're 20 years old when they're in fact 55. And if I was jerk I could punch them in the face knocking them back, and they might turn back to me asking "why does my jaw hurt?" I could then say "you fell," and they would respond with something like "oh ok, who are you again?", I'll respond "I'm a RN, I've been working with you for 15 years", then they might laugh, saying "that me and my wife just got here today, where is she right now?" and so on and so on. Of course, I would never treat them that way, but that's how bad the memory loss is.
Finally, if you're alcoholic who quits cold turkey, you're in very real danger depending how bad your addiction is/was. If you get the DTs, which can start as late as 3 days from your last drink, shakiness, delerium, other signs, YOU NEED TO BE IN A HOSPITAL. People joke about the DTs, but, it has a FATALITY RATE OF AROUND 15%. It is no joke, ideally you should taper, but that's extremely hard since the effects of alcohol usually make you do stupid things, so a taper plan is very hard to stay with. So, if you're trying to CT alcohol, go the the hospital before you get the DTs, don't try to tough it out on your own. Many hospitals will actually give you few shitty beers a day, and a whole host of other medications, and they'll slowly withdrawal the alcohol trying to avoid the DTs. It's a long, painful thing to do, but is 100% worth it!
During my time in Nursing school, I saw one very nice lady, but something like 94 years old, die. Also, 1 90+ year old man, who was expected to die in a few days (I don't know exactly from what.) And the only other 3 people I saw WHO WERE GOING TO DIE, in less then a week, were 3 men suffering from various alcohol caused disorders, in their 40s-50s. Try too taper, but go to your doctor first to develop a safe plan. And if you notice the signs of the DTs, per the medical definition, have someone get you to the hospital quickly. And if you can't stick to your taper plan, it's time for an actual hospital detox or alcohol specific detox center.
And this is just the beginning of dangers of problems caused by alcohol, I could pretty easily write a 10 page paper on the subject, if only I wasn't sick of 2, 15-20 page papers per week in nursing school. The dangers of alcohol don't stop at you, drunk driving, losing control completely against your normal character and getting in fights, stumbling off side walks into on coming vehicles, your death will cause significant trauma to that person for a long long time.
Don't get me wrong, I have my drug own addictions, and drink a beer maybe 4/7 days a week, and maybe will have 4 or 5 on a special occasion, fortunately I can control alcohol use, other drugs I can't. Scroony, I can't fully evaluate you from here, and don't know how bad your addiction is/was, but I would recommend going to an alcohol detox center, hospital, or at LEAST a 2nd Doctor for a second opinion, now asap. What you experienced Monday wasn't the DT's, the DT's refer to specific set alcohol withdrawal symptoms of alcohol withdrawals, some of the symptoms from Tuesday and Wednesday are signs of the DT's (though there's many other signs that you didn't report.) Hopefully your Doctor was competent, I know the last 4/5 I saw were not competent. I won't get into that or I'll write 4 more giant angry paragraphs. I probably just had a streak of bad luck, but if you get ACTUAL DTs, YOU'RE PLAYING WITH YOUR LIFE. Don't try MAN UP and TOUGH IT OUT, try to AT LEAST get a 2nd opinion, if not go to a detox center/hospital and get their opinion. If you get actual, medically defined DT's, and I don't want to scare you, but for your own sake I will, YOU'RE TRUSTING ONE MAN/WOMAN with your LIFE. At a hospital, even if they determine you don't have the DTs, you can relax a bit, and they can give you better medications to help you through your detox more safely and comfortably (it will still suck I'm afraid). Get someone to drive you wherever you go, you're not safe to drive. Am I being overly cautious? YES because actual DT's KILL PEOPLE somewhere around 15% as I said earlier, and you've described at least a few of the symptoms. I doubt you're in real danger, but don't trust your life to ONE DR, nor me who doesn't know the extent of your addiction and what other symptoms you may not be reporting.
Stay safe yawls!
