Yes and No, addicts tend to live longer thesedays, thanks to medication and better access to care, but the quality of that life is still going to be rough. To put it another way, in the 1950s you could drink yourself to death, today you will most likely drink yourself into a residential care home, suffering through debilitating pain and the crushing existence of being mentally/physically disabled, but with the triple indignity of everything being the result of your own actions.
It's why I still have a lot of sympathy for ralph, yes he's a dreadful man, but right now, even now; if he were to check himself into a US addiction Rehab program, stay sober, he could avoid an unbelievably grim existence. Still live for another 30-40 years, the liver is a resilient organ which can mend itself unlike the heart or brain.