Does Winston die right at the end of the novel?

[Gandalf13]

At the end of the novel Winston describes the feelings he felt as he finally learned to love Big Brother he also says that the long hoped for bullet was entering his brain. This left me wondering whether the bullet that had entered his brain was hypothetical and represented the ideals of the party or if it had been an actual bullet.

[The Atheist]

That was a metaphorical bullet, but it would have been followed by a real one in the very near future.

As O'Brien said, they couldn't kill him until he was perfect, and that perfection being achieved was it. Kind of like Buddhist nirvana in reverse.

[kev67]

I got the impression the party was encouraging him to drink himself to death. If not, then why are they plying him with so much gin? Is it to keep him in a state of constant befuddlement? If so, it doesn't seem like they have much confidence that their program of rehabiliation really works. I would have thought encouraging someone to drink themselves to death was a slow and unreliable way of executing someone, but his health already seems very poor by the time he meets Julia again at the end of the book.