Hi, How are you? I am so sorry to hear about your brother. Alcohol de-addiction can be very challenging , both for the patient and for the family. Relapses are common and it takes team-work between the patient, family and the doctors team to treat this. The liver is a remarkable organ in its capacity to regenerate. We can resect (cut out) more than 70% of a person s liver and the rest of the 30% will grow back to normal size within 3 weeks!! The flip side to this is that until the liver is damaged beyond 75%, the patient will not have any symptoms related to liver disease. Just as a rubber band can be stretched only so much before breaking, so is the liver s capacity to regenerate. When it is continously damaged as in case of daily intake of alcohol or viral infection like hepatitis b or hepatitis c, at one point it will stop regenerating itself and leads to scar tissue formation. Scar in the liver will lead to hardening of the liver and the in-between liver tissue appears as nodules - this is known as cirrhosis of the liver. This will subsequently lead to portal hypertension which will result in vomiting of blood and fluid accumulation in the belly. In the initial stages, these things can be managed with medications, but later on the patient will end up needing a liver transplantation. Hope this helped and hope your brother feels well soon. Please do not hesitate to contact me for further details, esp regarding centers which offer liver transplantation - rxsuresh@gmail.com