So this question is for my favorite musician alexi law who passed away recently. He was 41 years old. He had a drinking problem since many years and in 2012 was rushed to the hospital because he vomited blood backstage and had a lot of stomach pain. In one of his interviews, he also mentioned he had stomach ulcers, but he quit drinking after that. And especially during his last years, he became very thin and pale. He passed away in end of december 2020. Can alcoholism and stomach ulcers cause death? And if he quit drinking then how and why did he die? What made him look thin and pale? I'm asking this question out curiosity because i'm a huge fan of him. The entire fanbase is confused, shocked and sad. His family hasn't mentioned the exact cause of his death yet. What do you doctors think?

Dr. Shobhit Kumar PrasadPsychiatrist6yrs exp

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Yes indeed, alcohol consumption increases chances of gastric acid secretion and consequently leading to gastric ulcer formation. It is advised to stop drinking if someone has been bothered by gastric ulceration issues. Alongwith tobacco smoking acts as additive to causing gastric ulceration. If at all gastric ulceration is not adequately treated, alongwith if he doesn't stop drinking or smoking, then there are high chances of decreased absorption of required nutrition in the body, and chances of gastric perforation (stomach perforation), which is a sudden emergency where patient has to be managed by commonly surgical means. There can be plethora of factors which can cause weight loss and thinning. Common causes could be him abusing some other drugs of abuse, and not taking care of nutrition, some condition like hiv/aids and cancer has not to be excluded. And I don't think that public reports are actually accurate, because they have to be framed often to make it socially appealing, because there has been recent advances in the field of drug de-addiction, and increased social ostracism if someone consumes in excess amounts. There could be possibility that he may had continued drinking on some occasions. Rest of all, if their family members and close friends want the actual cause to be not publicly shared, it is upto them. They have been in grief process. Because everything just trends on quickly in social media, and things get more spiced up while sharing the contents, and then everyone will keep on bothering them in their natural grief process will only make it worse for them. Think of the situation where a similar kind of incident happens to one of your closed one, and people bothering you at that moment, it will be immensely frustrating.  

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