George Best

I was listening to the radio this morning and it pissed me off to hear people ringing in talking about George Best. At 9am people were having arguments on national radio about a man who is gravely ill in hospital and quite probably dying. Some were saying how great he was and others were criticising him for his alcoholism. Some people said he didn't deserve to get the liver transplant he received a few years ago because he continued to drink and had been reported as beating his wife.

I think its important to remember a some things:

1. The doctors have said his current illness is not as a result of alcohol.

   Prof Williams, responsible for Best's care since his transplant, said the infection was not directly related to his problems with alcohol.




2. The media that is now making so much capital from his illness have as much as anything else contributed to his demise. The man needed help and support to overcome his alcohol addiction. Certain sections of the media used his alcoholism for sensationalism, and I'm not talking about the tabloids. I'm talking about TV chat shows that bring him on as a guest, but first put him in the guest reception room with alcohol freely available. They have done it to lots of people, Best, Oliver Reid, Shane McGowan to name just a few. A drunk guest will get people talking about your show and boost viewer numbers the next week



3. Finally, he is a dying man, no one deserve to die for having an illness like alcoholism. He got a liver, he continued to drink, he was wrong. Maybe someone else would have gotten the liver and never drank again, but maybe not. Maybe that person would have drank as well. How can we ever know? Should he have been allowed to die because his alcoholism was so public compared to most? Does he now deserve to die for that weakness? And remember it is not his new liver that is failing, but an infection causing internal bleeding.

We should let him and his family have some dignity in his final days.

Update: 25 November - After an initial recovery George Best was again returned to intensive care last Friday where his conditioned worsened and, after fighting for much longer than the doctors predicted, he finally passed away at 12:55pm today from multple organ failure.