Welcome aboard David.

I can only say that none of us are health
professionals that I know of. Those who *are* will likely
tell you there is risk. I've never seen a heart victim *die*, but I
don't work as a EMS tech. EMS people see people croak every week, so if
tell them you have a chest pain what do you think they will do ?

You can only get/use/trust so many opinions from usenet groups because
the
the Aliens have take over the computers and you just can't have a calm
decision.

Seriously.

My journey started at AA with dry spells,
and eventually led me admitting my problems to my general doctor who
help alittle.

There are some drugs to help you get over the initial mental and
physical withdraw symptoms that a doctor can help you with.

Personally, death is rare in that it only happens once to YOU. ;-) But
the old guy
in rehab that had a wet brain was sent
to a full service hospital his first week when I was there and he died
of something two weeks later. They kept it pretty quiet on why.

My I share my experience.

I hid my drinking even while in AA at the start. I was embarassed about
it.
I was different and stronger.
I lied about how much I drank.
My health got pretty bad. My job was in question.

Many if us hoped we could find the strength and will power to quit.To
me , it's nothing like quitting smoking. Repeated attempts and failures
for me made it worse.

I offer to you advice to seek profession help if your not able to cope
with it yourself.

Men typically don't ask for help. We are too proud.

If you have health insurance, use it. They generally have excellent
chemical dependience programs that go unused.

Keep coming back.

The alien mind controllers are not aways in control around here.

Ben There.