--though I'm sorry for the situation that prompted you to get here.

Alcohol can certainly cause neuropathy directly--large amounts of alcohol are neurotoxic--but very often even moderate drinkers may get symptoms of peripheral neuropathy due to vitamin deficiencies caused by the fact that people who drink large amounts seldom eat a proper diet. Moreover, people with certain genetic backgrounds have trouble metabolizing alcohol without using a lot of certain vitamins, such as B1, which is then depleted and this deficiency can then cause neuropathy.

Still, one should never assume that one's neuropathy is due completely to alcohol abuse; there may be other things going on besides that or nutritinal deficiency, and a thorough work-up is advised.

Come on over to our peripheral neuropathy forum--there's lots of information on this over there:

http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/forum20.html