Quote:
Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
The enzyme test is a fucking unecessary insurance company pushed test to determine who's a high risk person. Some actuarial sitting ina cubicle made the determination that alcohol consumption is a good indicator of other high risk behaviors. They use impossible behavior baselines. Then the AMA puts out these ridiculous baselines like "If you have more than 15 drinks a week, you're in grave health danger." Ridiculous. Its amazing people live to be 80 these days, considering that these wonderful baselines did not exist when these old folks started swilling booze and smokin butts in the 50s. Hell, you couldn't eat eggs for a while because of some shit some asshole scientist said.
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Both grandfathers died of alcohol or drug related illnesses. One of them, an alcoholic for 50 plus years, but on the wagon entirely for 10 or so, lingered for five years in a VA nursing home with symptoms resembling alzheimer's. He couldn't recognize the woman he'd been married to for 50 years, his kids, or tell you anything about his life, except for the gruesome days as a halftrack driver in his unit in WW2. Fortunately, he also smoked for 50 plus years, so he got lung cancer, and the family opted not to treat it so he could finally die.
The other one liked to prescribe his own medication, and when he stroked out the first time, he lost a hell of a lot of brain capacity, and he lived for 15 or so years in a crazy sort of existance, still self-medicating, despite attempts by the family to get the pharmacy to stop filling his prescriptions. The second time he stroked out, unfortunately, a family member plauged with guilt let them put him on a ventilator so he lingered for two years before finally giving out in another VA hospital. It also wasn't a pretty way to die.
