Inspired by the success of the earlier thread, I ask the question: how long does a heavy drinker/alcoholic live? As was noted, heavy alcohol use ages people-possibly moreso than drug use. Of course, wine/beer have some nutritive values…but the effect of so much alcohol on the liver and kidneys is preety severe.
So, supposing somebody becomes a heavy drinker by age 25-how long would they live?
My cousin is close to drinking himself to death and he is like 51. But he is no wino, he drinks a fifth of Jack Daniel’s every day.
I would say it varies greatly depending on their living conditions.
If by ‘wino’ you mean homeless/bum type alcoholic, they tend to have fairly short life spans, mainly because their living conditions are really poor and I think that just drives them to drink even more heavily. So for them, I might say a general rule is 5-25 years, largely depending on climate/environment where they happen to stay. I would say their deaths come largely from exposure/accidents, and less rarely from long term nutrient deficiency or medical problems.
But if you are talking about closet alcoholics, who manage to keep up with their lives somewhat and still stay up on their health and still have a warm place to sleep at night, they might live for much longer than that. In the ER, I’ve definitely seen people in their 80’s who were just being discovered as alcoholics (and having been for 50+ years) so not everyone succumbs to liver failure and the like.
Not particularly pertinent, but it seems worth mentioning that their life up to the point that they die isn’t exactly peaches and sunshine, so even if the medical impact isn’t great, it’s still better to avoid being a wino. 
My uncle was a skid row drunk. I’m assuming that’s what you mean by wino. He’d drink whatever he could afford, which was, usually, Thunderbird.
His IQ was in the 150s. He couldn’t seem to “mesh” with society. He started drinking during his tour in WWII, at age 17. He died at age 45 in a VA hospital.
I think his story is about average.
What are they drinking and how much? What kind of family history have they got?
I’ve seen a 30 year-old dying of liver failure, and he drank 3 litres of strong cider a day for 5 years and was teetotal before that.
Northern Ireland recently had an 18-year old dying of liver failure after a heavy binge and who alledgedly didn’t have an alcohol problem ( I say alledegly, because I personally don’t believe anyone who leaves a hospital bed to go to the nearest pub has no issues with alcohol).
I’ve also seen a fair number of men in their 70s and 80s who have been heavy drinking alcoholics for more than 50 years and who are admitted to hospital with something like a heart attack or after a fall.
Only about 20% of heavy drinkers develop cirrhosis- accidents, misadventure, heart attacks, pneumonia, cancers and strokes will kill most of the rest.
How does it affect the situation if the person takes care to eat a semi-balanced diet vs. getting most/all of his calories from booze.
So I was walking down the street one day, and I saw a wino eating grapes, I told him, dude, you have to wait.
Sorry, had to put that in.