Two Weeks Af Ter a Liver Swop, Girl of 19 Was Back on Alcopops

By James Mills

AFTER eight days in a coma and a life-saving liver transplant, Laura Bates was warned that continuing to drink alcohol could kill her.

But the 19-year-old is apparently so caught up in the binge- drinking culture that she has refused to heed medical advice.

Claiming that she would feel ‘left out’ if she gave up alcohol, the student had her first alcopop a mere two weeks after being released from hospital.

She admits to going out drinking with friends at least twice a week – despite the fact that alcohol abuse was at least partly to blame for her liver failing just six months ago.

Her case was held up last night as an example of how deeply entrenched the drinking culture has become, particularly among young women.

Miss Bates, whose parents Caroline, a 51-year-old housewife, and Derrick, a 48-year-old customer service worker, have begged her to stop drinking, said: ‘My friends told me not to but I wanted to feel normal again so I bought a bottle of WKD (a vodka-based alcopop). ‘At first I did feel bad about the family who donated their relative’s liver to me – I felt it was disrespectful to the person who died.

But people buy me drinks and I feel left out if I don’t have one. I’ve decided it’s okay to have a few – I don’t think I’m doing anything wrong.’ Hospital admissions for alcoho lrelated liver disease have doubled in a decade to around 39,000 a year. Last week, it emerged that young women who work in offices are twice as likely to drink themselves to death as the rest of the population and a study last month revealed that teenage girls regularly drink more than boys.

Miss Bates, who studies business at college and works part-time as a model, admits to having been drawn into the growing ladette culture at 14. ‘We’d normally go out to bars and clubs twice a week,’ she told Closer magazine. ‘I’d start off with a couple of vodka and cokes at home and then have 39,000 people are admitted to hospital with drink-related liver disease each year about seven or eight cherry WKDs in town.’

Her liver failed in February after she came home drunk from a night out in her home town of Preston.

It is extremely rare for a woman so young to need a liver transplant because of alcohol abuse alone, and Miss Bates claims that the main cause was excessive doses of paracetamol, which she had been taking for tonsillitis. After she fell into a coma, Miss Bates was placed on a life-support machine at St James’s Hospital, Leeds.

She said: ‘My parents were told I had only 12 hours to live. I needed a new liver but they said it was unlikely they’d find a donor in time.’ Fortunately, a donor was found and Miss Bates underwent a nine-hour transplant operation. She spent another six weeks in hospital and was discharged in April.

Doctors warned that if she drank again she could die. She admits to going to bars twice a week but claims she has only two alcopops a night.

Anthony McLellan, a former programme director for the Priory clinic’s alcohol unit, said most who have a liver transplant because of alcohol start drinking again within two years.

George Best, who died in 2005, is a famous example.

Mr McLellan added: ‘She needs to keep away from alcohol completely but she is caught up in a culture which condones drunkenness.’

Closer Magazine is on sale today.

39,000 people are admitted to hospital with drink-related liver disease each year

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