There’s been mostly mourning over the death of footballing hero George Best, but I’ve also read plenty of comments about his drinking. To people of my age, George Best was almost as famous for being an alcoholic as being a footballer, and his liver transplant three years ago was controversial because people thought he would just start drinking again anyway – which he did.
But I still don’t understand the really judgemental people, the ones who say that he should have stopped drinking. He was an alcoholic, and so he drank. Yes, sometimes alcoholics can give up, but often they can’t.
It’s the sheer gall of this kind of judgement that bugs me. It’s the size of ego that is required to think to yourself “I disapprove of that – and if I was an alcoholic, I wouldn’t drink. If I was overweight, I would diet; if I was taking heroin, I would stop.”
How the hell do you know that then? You really think you’re such a majestic person that you would overcome any problem that was thrown at you?
The truth is it’s easy to overcome other people’s problems; the ones we can’t manage are our own. Remember that the next time someone says to you “Oh yes, IBS – that’s not a big deal. If I had that I’d just take fiber…”
Actually, I don’t think that’s a very good analogy here. With IBS You could do all the right things for your body and still suffer problems. I do believe that people have more power than they give themselves credit for. I believe people can stop drinking or lose weight (won’t be easy, may be the hardest thing they’ve ever had to do but this is a *life* we’re talking about). The key is to never give up. I don’t know anything about George Best but as a family member of someone who had their organs harvested I can understand people being upset about the transplant issue. That organ could’ve kept someone else alive. It’s a gift.
Yes, you are certainly right about the fact that IBS sufferers can do everything in their power to get well and still be ill (I didn’t mean to imply otherwise), and I do understand why people were upset about the transplant issue, it’s a very difficult area.
However, the point I was making was that we often see other people’s problems as being easier to solve than our own, and I know a lot of IBS sufferers find that their family and friends treat them as if they have a minor issue rather than a serious medical complaint.
You say that they key is to never give up, and that’s true, but some people are simply defeated by the sheer weight of their problems – including people with chronic medical conditions, both physical and mental. I just don’t want to be someone who looks at the victim and says “Well, if I had been in your position, I would have done better than you.”