Nelsan Ellis (Wikimedia commons)
Last week actor Nelsan Ellis, better known as Lafayette on the HBO series True Blood, died at age 39 from heart failure. Earlier this week, his family elaborated in the hope of helping others: he died of heart failure while trying to go through alcohol withdrawal on his own.
His family’s intent may be to warn people about the dangers of alcohol and drugs – he allegedly had several other unspecified drug addictions – and that’s right and proper, but what might get lost is that he died because he was going through alcohol withdrawal on his own.
Alcohol withdrawal is dangerous. It can kill you more quickly than continued alcohol consumption. The risk isn’t just a bad hangover or migraines. Long-term consumption of large amounts of alcohol can lead to alcohol withdrawal syndrome, a condition where if you stop drinking or reduce your consumption drastically and suddenly, you suffer life-threatening side effects such as seizures, delirium tremens or DTs (hallucinations, nausea, rapid heartbeat, sweats, extreme agitation) and death.
Alcohol is one of a few drugs or other substances (if you don’t consider alcohol a drug) that can kill you if you withdraw too quickly without medical supervision. (The others are benzodiazepines, such as Xanax or Valium, and maybe methadone.) The reason why is that alcohol suppresses some of the brain’s neurotransmitters, causing them to work harder to keep the body functioning normally. Abruptly stopping drinking means those neurotransmitters are still working overtime, which means they are now working too hard. It’s dangerous, like when a race car engine is in the red.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t stop drinking, but you shouldn’t just lock yourself in a room and quit cold turkey. A medically supervised alcohol detox is advised because doctors can administer drugs that alleviate the withdrawal symptoms. A stay at an alcohol rehab center with onsite detox facilities is ideal because help is available immediately.
Nelsan Ellis’ family said he had tried to quit with “many stints in rehab,” and was embarrassed by his addictions. Maybe he felt too embarrassed to go back to rehab. He shouldn’t have been, It’s worth repeating what the U.S. Surgeon General wrote last year:
“For far too long, too many in our country have viewed addiction as a moral failing. This unfortunate stigma has created an added burden of shame that has made people with substance use disorders less likely to come forward and seek help. It has also made it more challenging to marshal the necessary investments in prevention and treatment. We must help everyone see that addiction is not a character flaw – it is a chronic illness that we must approach with the same skill and compassion with which we approach heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.”
