Sum 41’s Deryck Whibley’s rocker lifestyle has really caught up with him. The 34-year-old was drinking every day for a while when he collapsed and had to be hospitalized for a month.
Thankfully his fiance Jocelyn Aguilar was there to get him the medical help he needed, but he had to be hospitalized for a month to deal with multiple organ failure, including his kidneys and liver.
“My liver and kidneys collapsed on me,” Whibley wrote on his blog. “Needless to say it scared me straight. I finally realized I can’t drink anymore. If I have one drink the docs say I will die. I’m not preaching or anything but just always drink responsibly.”
Whibley’s ex-wife Avril Lavigne offered him support via Twitter: “Spoke to @Sum41 Deryck today. I am so proud of him. He is family to me and always will be. #StayStrongDeryck.”
Deryck has been seen out and about after his hospitalization looking extremely gaunt. He’s said doctors told him one more drink might kill him.
UPDATE: This comment posted to the comment section sums up the situation eloquently: “Alcoholism is brutal. I wish MTV, Bad Girls Club and all the shows that glorify binge and blackout drinking would show what happens when people in their 20′s and 30′s can’t stop “partying” and end up like Deryck. Recovering from alcoholism is harder than most other substances because it’s so socially acceptable to get drunk more than sticking a needle in your arm or smoking meth is. People think alcoholics only get really sick when they’re much older and as someone that works in the addiction field that’s just not true. I’ve seen many people under 40 with permanent organ damage from hardcore drinking that started as partying and became something else really quickly. Liver failure is one of the most painful ways to die. People always think of heroin and meth as being bad evil drugs (which they are don’t get me wrong) but don’t realize that alcohol withdrawal is one of the few forms of withdrawal that can kill you. So for someone in Deryk’s case just getting quitting drinking cold turkey could have also killed him in the form of a seizure.
Very sad for someone as young as he is, he’ll have health problems all his life now even if he gets sober. It’s not pretty. But hopefully he listens to the professionals, works a program and never touches alcohol again and maybe uses whatever celebrity he has to warn other young people about how this can happen.”
