gerryBScot

Just to tell you , folks, that I am not doing too well

I will be back.

Jemjem at the end of my drinking, alcohol completely isolated me - it wanted me in my own space, alone, living in my head, consumed by my feelings and fears.....and of course in such an unhappy state I had to drink to kill the noise in my head ; alcohol ad long ceased to have any connection with fun, the ostensible reason for drinking in the first place. At the end there was no fun. You might be at the jumping off place - a critical moment when you need to be bold and do something different, unknown, like get help; alternatively you can carry on with the same misery, it doesn't seem as if it is going to better for you. Please feel free to PM if I can be of any help.

There is parking at Makhasan, the train terminal in Bangkok; I don't know what fees/restrictions apply there, maybe worth checking out. But anything over a few days I reckon you are best getting a taxi, there and back; I mean 30 days @ 250 a day, will cost you 7,500 THB - ouch! OK I guess it is a bargain when you can pay £50-£60 to park for 24 hours in Heathrow T1.

Good for you, my friend. Don't mind the naysayers, they are no doubt drowning in a glass of cheap whisky. You are to be congratulated. Make the most of the steps, it's one thing to be sober, it's another to actively pursue recovery.

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Just a couple of thoughts. I disagree with you Alfalfa 19 in saying there were naysayers prior to your post. Rather I would say there are those who noted their lack of appreciation for some who play the "holier than thou" role. I'm not saying the OP did such a thing. Personally if it was a personal goal of the OP I'd congratulate him as I would a person who stopped smoking by choice or someone who lost weight through their own effort. (loss by disease doesn't count)

For myself, once I decided to stop smoking years ago, I made the decision I'd never run down the block to berate someone who I saw smoking in a no smoking area or who lights up in my presence. Hell, I say "light um if ya got um".

The OP did well and achieved what he sought to achieve. I wish him well in the future and hope he stays free of alcohol if that's what he wants.

One of the amazing things is this: I am not really bothered about other people's drinking or indeed smoking. For instance I don't go round bars trying to help drunks and I am only anti-alcohol in respect of myself. I rarely volunteer information about my alcoholism - it's not something I shout about but the people who know and care for me and vice versa, they know.

When we have parties at home I am quite happy, for instance, to provide drinks. By choice I don't spend a lot of time in "wet" places but when I am around alcohol it doesn't bother. I find drunks quite interesting as they usually afford a window into how I used to be!

AA taught me that starting out with an objective of life long sobriety was too much of a burden for an alcoholic - keep it simple and just concentrate on 24 hours at a time, and even within that, if necessary concentrate on an hour at a time. That's how I managed to hit double digit years.

Heartiest congrats.You must be very proud of yourself.

I'm just a mere whipper-snapper with barely 2 1/2 years sobriety under my belt.

I will never catch you up, as if I ever make it to ten years, you will have moved on to 17.5 years.

Well done to you and all those good folk at AA who have helped you along your way.

Respect,

Mobi

Thanks Mobi. on the day at a time principle we have exactly the same length of sobriety: our day began at midnight and ends at midnight: if we go without drinking for 24 hours we have the same amount of sobriety. Keep going strong and enjoy your recovery!

why do ex drinkers have to go on about it all the time, pathetic.

If I forget I am an alkie I'll die - simple as that. I am very happy to agree that I am pathetic, 54 going about 14 in real terms.

Congrats Matt you should keep your result and then you can compare it to any further liver function tests you have. I remember getting the same test, aged about 46, after giving up alcohol for two years. When I went to see the doctor for the results his words will always stay with me: "Positively athletic, you should frame these!" I will celebrate 10 years of sobriety on Sunday. As others have posted, there is life after/without alcohol, even here in LOS, and for me there is no loss: I got my life back by quitting...... Good luck whatever you do.

Vodka and clear spirits are generally acknowledged to cause minimal hangovers because they contain less additives and colouring agents. People often believe that the Scots must be big whisky drinkers because it grows there; we are big drinkers ( in my case "was"!) but the most popular spirit sold in Scotland is vodka and has been for years; goes down great, mixed with the "other national drink", Irn Bru. Couldn't confirm about hangovers, suffice to say I haven't had one for almost 10 years......

Thank you all for the help and references.....really appreciated. Looks like it is 30 days which is good to know. Also looks like it is not going to be an issue as I am going to be discharged from hospital in the next few days.

If you contribute to social security:

http://www.sso.go.th/wpr/eng/sickness.html

It may not be worth bothering.

Thanks Stef I am not actually looking for money; I just want to know if sick employees have statutory rights in respect of how long their employers are obliged to pay them if they are sick. My employers are saying 30 days is the maximum under Thai law and I just want to know if that is correct in the event my absence exceeds 30 days which it might.

Hi Jaffacakes am pleased to hear you are in hospital and getting this treated and it sounds they are treating it correctly too. I would urge you to be especially careful about re-infection as happened with me, which led to Necrotising Fasciitis, NF.

Don't get any water on the wound until it has healed completely and your skin completely covers the wound site.....doesn't actually matter how small the wound site maybe, these bacteria will get in if there is a way. If you get the dressing dirty or wet get it redressed immediately. Basically don't take any chances whatsoever. I had a skin graft last week because the surgical cleaning/debridements required to get rid of the NF left me with a deep cavity under my ankle; I am confined to bed with a large plaster cast on my ankle, currently on Day 8, and this comes off Thursday morning when I'll know if the graft has "taken". So I am hoping......but I am not complaining, I feel lucky and if you check out NF you'll probably understand where I am coming form, a real horror story. Good luck and let me wish you a speedy recovery.

Please forgive the impertinence of my question, but how painful was the NF ?

Kalbo I didn't really experience a lot of pain; I am not a doctor or scientist so I can only speculate about my good fortune: I think the lack of pain from the actual infection was because NF dead tissue so there is no blood in the affected areas. I think the NF becomes excruciatingly painful once it spreads and takes hold. I had a lot of mental pain however, aka fear and anxiety: I was really afraid as I knew that this could get very nasty, very quickly. I can't be certain of this but I believe the infection was diagnosed within 48 hours by which time I was in hospital and on intravenous anti-biotics and had a first debridement/surgical cleaning within a few hours of being admitted to hospital. Fortunately the intern surgeon knew what he was treating and what to do. I was in some pain following the debridements, notably the third when the surgeon went in deep and after the skin graft; after the graft I was given some morphine in the recovery room which killed the pain post-operation and some further strong pain killers later on the ward. On Day 2 I didn't need anything.

Everything I read here convinces me of this: don't hang around worrying if you are not feeling well or have obvious symptoms. See a doctor or go to hospital ASAP. The OP here did that and hopefully he will be able to get on with normal life in a few days.

Hi Can anyone advise me if there is any law which sets out minimum requirements for employers with regard to employees who are unable to work due to ill health.

I am a teacher in a small, private, upcountry bilingual school, essentially a private business. I am currently hospitalised but expect to be released imminently and discharged and will return to work. So this matter may not be problematic but just in case it is......

I'd just like to know what Thai law says about sick pay and if possible I would welcome a reference to the appropriate legislation, if any. Many thanks.

Hey Knacker glad to hear GM is hanging on. Go, girl, go! I can't advise on the issues but maybe GM will continue to respond to the care she is receiving and that's clearly the best way to frustrate the vultures. Unfortunately what you describe is far from being Thai, but sadly universal - it might not happen so blatantly in other parts of the world, but I have experience sadly of this in my own community in Scotland and we do read about it. Be careful.

Hi Jaffacakes am pleased to hear you are in hospital and getting this treated and it sounds they are treating it correctly too. I would urge you to be especially careful about re-infection as happened with me, which led to Necrotising Fasciitis, NF.

Don't get any water on the wound until it has healed completely and your skin completely covers the wound site.....doesn't actually matter how small the wound site maybe, these bacteria will get in if there is a way. If you get the dressing dirty or wet get it redressed immediately. Basically don't take any chances whatsoever. I had a skin graft last week because the surgical cleaning/debridements required to get rid of the NF left me with a deep cavity under my ankle; I am confined to bed with a large plaster cast on my ankle, currently on Day 8, and this comes off Thursday morning when I'll know if the graft has "taken". So I am hoping......but I am not complaining, I feel lucky and if you check out NF you'll probably understand where I am coming form, a real horror story. Good luck and let me wish you a speedy recovery.

Thanks to both of you and Moo please excuse my stupidity. The good news is I have G-MM Sports Extra so should be able to see it.

I think a Wigan win would really make the final day relegation battle utterly absorbing; it is not a ridiculous prospect either with Wigan being buoyed by their FA Cup win, they'll be up for it. Wigan also are due to play Villa at home as the last fixture so I would be bricking it if I was Paul Lambert and Wigan sneak a win at the Emirates.

Compelling stuff. Many thanks for the help.

http://www.livesoccertv.com/channels/true-sport-1/

Thx....... true sport 1 is non-terrestrial; wondering if this game's being broadcast on Chnnel 3 7 or 10, the free one.

Is this game being broadcast on any Thai terrestrial channel? Details would be very welcome as I am restricted tonight, or rather tomorrow morning, to the free channels. Many thanks.

Weegis dinnae use "ken", know whit ah meen, wee man! Am urnae gonnae say much more aboot this wan ; now Gleska and Embra are a mere 45 miles apart but the difference in the accents is immense and az fur thae quines and loons fae Ay-burdeen: phit like mun? Not to mention Dundee and pez and peez doon the heh street. Some also reckon that the folk of Inverness, capital of the Highlands, speak the purest form of English. If you want a laugh check out the vidz of that great Glasgow comedian Stanley Baxter: "Parliamo Glasgo" which roughly translates as "My friend I come from Glasgow".

Good to hear from you again, Jemjem, and I am glad you managed to avoid those.Funnily enough I too found I had two cans of Chang in the fridge a few days ago, left over from a party we had a few months. I would be lying if I didn't say the thought momentarlly crossed my mind that I could neck these and no one would be the wiser!

Sheryl is correct about AA helping you meet other people and enabling you to do things together with other folk that don't drink. In my early days it also helped enormously in getting me through the days because there were also people to hang out with in between meetings - lots of visits to coffee shops and in a lot of respects a continuation of meetings. I also went to a few conventions and had a memorable first sober New Year at a gig with about 1200 other sober drunks listening to a band known as The Trusted Servant featuring some of the biggest names in rock, fellow AA members.

Jemjem I hadn't realised that you had already been to AA. I readily accept that the so-called "spiritual" element of AA puts many people off, especially at the beginning. I would suggest to you and any other beginner to not let this get in the way at the beginning - not drinking is the priority: don't drink, don't think and get to a meeting is what I was told at the beginning! The "don't think" was probably as important as the "don't drink" part of this and of course getting to meetings is what really made it for me. This worked for me and I have no doubt that I wouldn't have hung around had the God stuff been too strong.

However as I got sober, I was aware that everything was changing for the better especially my mental state but also my physical health. This wasn't overnight but rather progressive. I was also starting to make significant inroads into other practical problems like my employment and indebtedness. I was also having a more meaningful and communicative relationship with my immediate family:I told my mother and sisters where I was at. Up to this point my relationship with them had been completely distant and superficial for 20+ years.

One day early on I found myself at a loose end in my home town, Glasgow, Scotland, on a visit to a friend who was experiencing some difficulties; he said he wanted the morning to himself. That morning my car ended up taking me to the cemetery where my father had been buried in 1977 as a 53 year old heart attack victim. He was a drunk and I hated him and had borne the most unmovable resentment towards him all of my life; this had not let up even though he had been dead for 30 years. This was the first time I had been to his grave since his burial. I wept by his grave for an hour, uncontrollably, and when I left I felt as if a huge burden had been removed from my shoulders.No one told me to do this, there was no process, I didn't have a sponsor, I wasn't working the programme.....I just went.

In reality this was the beginning of my spiritual awakening - I, a life long victim began to be able to forgive people. Soon after this I went to a funeral of a young guy who went back out for more and choked and died on his vomit as he lay comatose. This guy got a truly wonderful send off, not a member of his family present, but 500 AAs in church for a funeral mass said by a priest I knew as Tony but who in fact was an AA. The closing hymn was "Amazing Grace" which I had heard a thousand times but the words "......that saved a wretch like me" ......well they stuck.

I heard someone tell it this way: in AA's first step "we admitted we were powerless over alcohol" - he said "power" is problem; we have lost our power; our power doesn't work, so we need to get a new power and the only requirement for that new power is that we accept that this power is more powerful than we are. Hence many AAs talk about their "Higher Power". That is as far as I understand it the spiritual part of AA. You don't need to go to church, do anything. Just be open minded. Increasingly I understand this strange sense that I wasn't doing anything, I was quite literally being guided. It wasn't Paul on the road to Damascus or anything of that ilk......

Another person talked about the "alcoholic horse thief" - easy to get an alcoholic horse thief sober but if s/he continues to steal horses they will drink again; I took this to mean it's not just good enough to quit drinking, but to stay sober we have to make a conscious attempt to change our thinking and behaviour as well. This is a life time job and is continuous and progressive. It's not about perfection, simply progress. I continue to make many errors.

So this is the big picture. But right now for you Jemjem and any beginner it really is about not drinking one day at a time and being open-minded about the rest.

Keep posting Jemjem and try to remember your problem is essentially the first drink - if you don't take the first drink you can not get drunk.

As I discovered it can also be more difficult for two foreigners to get married in Thailand simply because outside of Bangkok the local "amphoes" ( the municipal offices where you register marriages, births, deaths etc) are often not accustomed to it; don't get me wrong there is no legal bar if your papers are in order. What I mean is the local "amphoes" are more accustomed to a Thai national marrying a foreigner. And requirements will probably be subject to a fair amount of variation and interpretation between different "amphoes". We, both foreigners, had to make three trips to our amphoe to get our "somrot" (wedding certificate) and had to bring two Thai worthies, with their ID cards, to witness everything; as I recall it also involved an enormous amount of paperwork: affidavits of freedom to marry from both embassies, translated and legalised. It was a very time consuming and expensive process, although the fee for the wedding certificate was as cheap as chips, but it was worth doing it and probably has saved us a lot of money now; for instance it enable us to register our marriage at my wife's Philippine embassy, they issued their own wedding certificate and every time we go to the Phils if we enter together and we produce our embassy certificate I automatically get a year's entry.

Yeah that's a great story, tamesisfwp. Hope the old girl makes a full recovery.

I have had the privilege to experience being admitted to a Government Hospital and was most impressed, as other OPs have, at the professionalism shown by all the Staff. Unlike some, I did opt for a private ward, which really does have all the bells and whlstles one receives at a Private Hospital, but at a fraction of the cost of the big Private Hospitals. The treatment and facilities were far superior to those one gets on the NHS in the UK. Well done Thailand.

i know what a Private hospital is... but can someone please explain what the difference is between a Government hospital and a Public hospital in Thailand ? Thanks

I can't claim to know the exact answer to your question but a government hospital is presumably directly managed and funded by the Ministry of Health; public funding allows for subsidy. So during my treatment I wasn't billed for professional fees, ie for the doctors, nurses etc; thereafter the cost of drugs are subsidised - I was on a very powerful dose of daily intravenous anti-biotics which were billed at 1,200 THB per day; I don't believe this was their true cost which I expect to have been higher. A private hospital is a private company and it's all about profit; so you get billed for everything right down to toilet tissue and the bed pan and every time the nurse changes your i/v you get billed for a new needle etc. No doubt others here will know more....

If I'm not getting too personal .... what has this all cost you so far?

No problem I don't mind. It has in fact cost me not one Baht inclusive of medication. I have a yellow book and get treatment in the public hospital for free. However you have to arrange it before hand

I've heard about the benefit of having a yellow book before (just the once!). When you say you have to arrange it before hand what do you mean? How difficult is it? The yellow book is of no use in the case of an accident? Does the yellow book benefit only apply to the person named in the book? What about other family members at the same address? Sorry for so many questions!

There is a thread here about the yellow book which might answer some of these questions: http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/587744-thai-government-insurance-for-husbands-of-thai-national/

Whatever it costs it is obscenely expensive.

And this one very helpful...not

It's not often I say that you guys in the UK have it better then us Aussies, however ...

A 'Partner Visa' or 'Prospective Marriage Visa' for Australia currently costs AUD $2,680 if lodged off shore ... roughly 80,000 Baht.

Should you, however lodge that Partner Visa application in the Lucky Country, it will set you back AUD $3,975... roughly 120,000 Baht.

Here (page 5)

So, is the UK price 'obscenely expensive' ... no, not on a relative scale.

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thx for that information - even more obscenely expensive in Oz.

Ive just finished chemotherapy treatment at Ratchaburi hospital lasting just under 6 months. I must admit that in all that time, I've never come across another westerner there.

Good hospital in my opinion. I used to stay in the chemo ward in a room with 8 beds.....300 baht a day and they would turn the aircon on usually between 10.00 and 16.00 hours each day although the Thais didn't like it saying that it was too cold for them.

Will be seeing the oncologist there on the 22nd of this month.

We are thin on the ground in these parts! I didn't see any other westerners during my short stay either. It is a good hospital. That was certainly my impression. Not just good doctors and nurses but that they had proper processes, so when the surgeon said he wanted to get my heart checked out, it actually happened and a cardiologist came in next day.

Good luck with your treatment.