May 21, 2012
Boozing Will Turn Rihanna into “the Next Whitney Houston,” Friends Fear
Rihanna is one of the busiest stars at the moment, but she might soon have to make time in her tight schedule for rehab. She’s also been drinking too much and might be facing liver damage, says a new report.
Right after the MET Gala this year, Rihanna was hospitalized for dehydration and exhaustion, but the latest print issue of The Enquirer (story via CB) claims her problems were of a different nature: she’d been boozing it up.
Citing unnamed but admittedly reliable sources, the tab writes that, for the past several years, Rihanna has been drinking way too much and it’s finally getting out of control.
Her friends and her family are worried that she might do some irremediable damage to her liver and are urging her to go to rehab before it’s not too late.
“Rihanna is spiraling out of control and is headed for an early grave,”one spy says for the tab.
She started drinking when she was just a teen and, today, she parties night after night away, as if there was no tomorrow.
“It never seems to be one beer or one cocktail. Once she gets started, Rihanna pounds drinks all night long, sometimes until the sun comes up. She definitely goes on binges. She’s been a hard drinker since her teens and her friends and family are desperately urging her to get into rehab,” the insider goes on to say.
Orlando-based, board-certified physician Dr. Gabe Mirkin agrees: if she’s really drinking that much, she’s in serious trouble. Rihanna needs to check herself right now, he says.
“Anybody who drinks alcohol for more than two hours a day, even if it is binge drinking once a week, is looking a premature death. Once the liver is permanently damaged, it’s over,” the expert adds.
Dr. Mirkin never met or treated Rihanna, and is speaking solely on the assumption that the insider’s claims of excessive drinking are accurate.
“The earlier you start to drink, the more the body becomes dependent on alcohol. It can cause deadly cirrhosis of the liver and alcohol poisoning – even at her age,” Dr. Robert Waldman, consultant to the Cliffside Malibu rehabilitation center, chimes in.
That Rihanna likes to party is no secret by now. Reports of her heavy drinking have been increasing in recent months, but she never got herself in a situation that could confirm they were true.
