My brother recently was admitted to the emergency room for shakes/tremors. He had a seizure which prompted the trip by ambulance to the er. He spend about 7 days in the ICU to detox his body and today he is placed in regular ward. He was also a smoker so that withdrawal did not help too it prolong the treatment process. I have learned a lot from this process. My brother has a very supportive family so we will be there to help him through the process. We have seen a side of him that we did not know was there. He was angry and agitated to the point that they had to restrain and sedate him completely. If there is a serious case of alcoholism you should seek medical help, its not a curse its a decease. I recommend that. There is no shame in seeking medical help. The doctors told us that he will be ok but that the process takes about a month since he was a hard severe drinker. Love and support are available for families too and we should take advantage of it not just the alcoholics. We as support people should know what there moods and expectations are like and do not place blame or accusations. It's hard enough to quit and they don't need the guilt. Lets support them in every effort. They did not become alcoholics over night so we cannot expect them to change overnight. Its a gradual process that we can all learn from.
Thanks for allowing me to share
Does anyone find that theyre ok now but reading about things makes them anxious, feeling of doom etc??
if i read this i feel jittery and have involuntary twitching.
i wonder why?
I'm on day 4 after a long dance with vodka. I've got classic symptoms: bizarre/bad dreams, insomnia, clammy hands/feet/face, general malise. How dumb is this! I quit smoking the same day. So I'm not surprised that my body is yelling at me. I'm determined to stick with it though, truly I do not feel as bad as the constant hangovers. I look a great deal better too, and I think it's really fun to enjoy a full dinner every night. Hang in there, everyone, this can be done and it must be done, lest we die too soon. MzzVicki
i posted a few months ago to share my latest detox from Queen Vodka. I managed to rasie my game to the point of consuming 2 Ltres daily of Vodka. Go me...NOT! The detox was agony, pure and simple agony. Heart paliptations took two weeks to finnaly let go of me and I sat for days watching the clock, hour by hour, wishing the days away. What shocked me the most was the phsycological (sp) effects. Depression hit me like a truck and I kid you not - i cried like a baby for 5 days straight. Im clean and sober now but Im beginning to see the long term damage alcoholism causes. Nothing in my world makes me smile anymore. The days are long and boring. I have no enthusiasm for anything at all. I drank to fill a void and now that I dont drink my life is just bland and grey and relentlessly lame. I wont go back to drinking as my health wont allow it (nor will my purse) but I cant lie and say I dont miss it. I do. Every journey to the shop is a test of willpower. Had the last detox not been so horrific then Im sure I would have given in by now. So...my question. Is it possible to enjoy life again without being pissed 24/7??? Im finding it tough to find happiness or enjoyment in anything now :(
I wrote the essay back on page 19, from my of quitting in 2009 you can find joy again but I think you have to actively look for it, this time round I've not really found it either, I've not been looking to add anything to my life which is why I think you have to look for it. A couple of days of euphoria after coming through the worst of the PAWS have been about it. I'm almost 6 months through and the cravings seem to be here, when I initially quit I didn't have any cravings, physical withdrawal and going nuts but I didn't want to drink other than because I've got nothing in my life therefore may as well drink. Now I'm relying on willpower and stubbornness as if I fall off the wagon again I'll never be able to get through the PAWS again if it gets more difficult than last time.
Its a conondrum. Noone ever really talks about ENJOYING being a drunk do they? I loved it. I enjoyed every sip, every glass, every drink. I actually preferred myself as a drunk than as a boring sober non-person. Booze got me out of bed, kept me going and put me to bed at night. Booze gave me an enthusiasm for life. I only stopped because my body couldnt take anymore and the last withdrawal was SO bad, SO scary I cant ever imagine doing it again. Noone tells you that life is going to be as dull as dishwater once you quit drinking. Its all about the pats on the back for managing to stop drinking. I think you and are are very similar. Biology has dictated we cant drink again and sheer willpower is stopping us......but I wont stand here and say Im glad. Im not. Everything I used to do was enhanhced by alcohol. I kept a hour by hour journal of the last home-withdrawal and whenever I get tempted to drink I read it. Its frightening what I went through and like you, I wont make it through another one. Id love to get a buzz from excercise or fitness but my body feels likie a bago of shi*. I never believed that alcolhol was a depressant because I was never depressed whilst drinking. However Im VERY depressed now Ive stopped. Those few weeks of euphoria for being sober are long gone. *sigh* I know its my fault. Ive done this to myself. Just cant envisage spending the next 50 years feeling THIS bored and disinterested in life.
I've come to realise over the last few months that the brain is railing against us in what we're trying to do and and that my case it has used 2 tactics. The first was to use depression and to make you feel like c**p, putting images in my minds eye that I associate with drinking. The second has been to make me think I enjoy being a drunk and that life is more fun as a drunk. I enjoy being drunk, however I despise being "a" drunk, I think there's a big difference and that is what we need to keep in mind. Thankfully I realised a while back not to trust a lot of the little thoughts that crop up, they are the subconscious brain trying to get it's fix, the conscious brain is the part we need to take heed of, that's what gave us the reasons for quitting in the first place.
true true. I hate being 'a' drunk. If I think about all the negatives they far outweigh the positives. I argue with just about everyone because being drunk makes me feel superior and always in the right (when clearly I am being argumentative and a bully) I spend money I dont have and once sober I am shocked at how much I have spent. I waste so much time thinking about pointless stuff instead of getting on and doing something worthwhile. I have realised one of my triggers for being a drunk. It is only when Im sober that I can piece together the chaos I have allowed my life to become and then the guilt and emabarresment for the things I have done make me cringe and I drink to block those thoughts out too. Basically i drink instead of facing life and thats a very sad admission isnt it? After each and evefry binge I am forced to face what a total fuc* up I have created and it takes longer each time to sort out the mess Iver made. Guess its a case of finding fulfilment in everyday things instead of blotting out life with booze. Hmmmn...alcohol is always the easy option, but not if your liver is failing and your family have all but tunred against you :(
Are you sure you aren't me? Everything you've said rings true with me, probably does for a lot in our position. I also drink instead of facing life, it is a sad admission but we'll never change without making that admission and actively trying to fix the things we've done and not make the same mistakes again. It's certainly not been easy but we seem to be on the right track, from what I understand the liver has outstanding powers of recovery so I hope that works out for you, and given time so does your family.
just checking in to see how yhou are get along? Has the insomnia and depression lifted a little now? DID YOU GET THE HEART PALPITATIONS????? Im always in terested in other people's withdrawal symptoms because as you know, being a drunk makes oneself very boring and narcissist (lol) and It still bothers me that my own withdrawals are so, so, so bad that id happily swap 100 hangovers for just 24 hours of my withdrawals. Let us know how you are doling and if you did 'slip' again, dont feel bad about telling us....theres always next time :)
LOL in some way it is comforting to know that Im not the only one who behaves this erratically. I really wouldnt like to put into print exactly how chaotic my life got on the last drinking binge. 2ltres of vodka every single day for 4 weeks was always going to end in tears but when the withdrawals had gone, the absolute MESS I had made for myself was minblowing, even by my standards. It all seemed insurmountable but 2 months or so later Ive managed to bring some order back. Liver is doing well which has stunned the quacks but family relations are very strained. I think maybe too damaged this time. Noone trusts a word I say and its heartbreaking to see that my entire family are scared of me (alcahol made me a liar and fantasist) and dont really want me around them. Cantg blame them. I must have been exceptionally badly behaved last time. My mum changed her telephone numbers! I still read my PAWS when I feel weak and remember how I thought I was going to die that time. The sheer guilt for how I must have shouted at my children and neglected their needs in favour of the bottle can bring me to my knees some days - so I know I wont go back again. How are things for you these days? Have your family forgiven you yet? Do your friends trust you again?
I have been drinking for 10 years, I started drinking because of my job, It made it easier to do. I now only drink to get to sleep at night. I cut my self down to only three days a week. I have a normal job now so I don't drink on the days I have to get up and go to work. It is vary hard for me to get to sleep at night. I do fine during the day, but when it's time to go to bed for the night my mind goes crazy and I can't stop thinking about everything that I have to do. I can not turn my brain off at night which is why I keep drinking. I just want to be able to sleep with out alcohol. I am not having any withdrawal symptoms that I know of other then my mind going crazy thinking all night. I have read a lot of the posts on here and I do not have those symptoms at least not yet. I hope that I never do. I like to drink just like the rest of you. I would like to be able to drink when I want to and not because I fill like if I don't I am not going to be able to sleep at night. I plan on trying some none habit forming medication. I am hoping that it will help me out. I have a lot of insomnia I fill like I never sleep. I am vary lucky that I have a man in my life that lets me get the sleep I need on my days off. Without him I don't know what I would do. My thing is I sleep all day on my days off because I am so drained that I can not get out of bed. I sleep until 3 in the afternoon sometimes that is how bad it is. I miss a whole day by sleeping and I don't get to enjoy my days off, it really sucks. I know you all may think that you have it worse then I do but this is a big problem for me because I have three kids that I really want to do things with during my days off and I can't because I can't get out of bed to do them and it hurts me so bad because I know I am hurting them to. Well I will let you know how the none habit forming medication goes when I try it. Thanks for being there for me.
hey there.:-D Just a quick note as now that you have admitted you have concerns its always nice for someone else to aknowledge that. Im not a dr, or qualified in medicine or phsychiatry - but what you describe sounds more like depression. The sleeping for days at a time (when you can do that) and using alcohol to sleep at night when you cant. Firstly you need to see a dr because I feel that your problem right now is your mental state of mind. However if you keep drinking at night then you will have a dependency problem too, which with 3 kids is not good. You are fortunate (not lucky) that you have no physical dependancy on booze (YET) but trust me...listen to me.....it WILL happen. None of us thought it would, but it does. Always. You dont need alcohol to get up in the morning, function during the day....you dont need it to give you confidence to be around people or leave your house, so I do think you are suffering with depression. just a thought - but alcohol wont cure you of insomnia. Long term it makes it worse...much worse, because eventually as the booze wears off your body will wake you up in the early hours craving more. Honestly. See a dr about depression. You have classic symptoms. Good luck!!
Pretty much all of the decade I was I heavy drinker I've lived away from my immediate family, 200 miles for most of it 4000 miles now, I still speak to my mother on a weekly basis but rarely speak to anybody in my family. Most of them we're supportive when I first quit, with the exception of my dad, but seeing as my dad part owns a couple of breweries all of the socialising when we're in the same vicinity is in the pub so it has been strained. Most of my friends have been pretty supportive most of the time, again I now live 4000 miles away from the majority of them so it's not so much the drinking that driven us apart more me emigrating. I was lucky in a way in that I was a functioning alcoholic, I'd manage to keep control through the week (generally able to limit myself to about half a litre of whiskey or 8-10 pints of beer between finishing work and going to bed) and then going for it at the weekend getting up to around the 2 litres mark. I was always quite devious about it, I'd be able to go out drinking with mates (which with my mates is the normal way of socialising) and would generally stay in control as I knew I'd lined up drinks back at my place to be able to get wasted on my own and keep the effect on others to a minimum. I don't bring up the subject of how my family and friends feel about me, I don't think I'd like the answer, either if it's negative or if they're proud that I'm back on the wagon (6 months this time next week). If it was bad it would send me on a downward spiral, if it was pride they felt I'd use that as something I can mess up which is my natural state so I'm just doing my usual ostrich impression and got my head buried in the sand. In terms of the recovery early January was the worst, much worse than when I quit in 2009, there was a fit of despair that lasted about a week where I'd be struggling to hold it together in work, I'd manage that but then pretty much not be able to move by the time I got home. For the last few weeks it's been pretty similar in terms of my home life, pretty much had to spend all day Saturday cleaning up to get my flat back into somewhere I'd want to live. I'm not sure how much of that is down to work having got ridiculously busy for the last few weeks which is a trigger for me and may go some way towards the cravings that have started over the past few weeks.
we have so much in common. Ive also isolated myself from the people who know me well enough to suspect if Ive fall en off the wagon. Stupid really because away from prying eyes im more likely to get up to trouble. My family are not drinkers at all and so have no conception (or tolerance ) to alcohol addiction. For them they can have a few on a weekend and leave it there. I cant. Never. Im also a functioning alkie. I think to be able to knock back half a litre of vodka by 7am, go to work and sneakily drink another half litre whilst AT work, come home, cook, clean, excercise the dogs and run the kids around, do homework and a a bit of home study whilst consuming yet ANOTHER1 ltre and have absolutely NOONE suspect im very drunk proves that its possible to hide an addiction if you are a long term abuser. Not proud of that at all. Not proud that I drink and drive and have done so for many years. All it will take is one little accident and Im in jail. Youd think that would be enough. What makes you stop/withdraw and try again? I do it when im vomitting up more than I can hold down and therefore have no choice. Cant satisfy an addiction when the body wont hold it down. What do you do for a living. I darent tell you what I do. I think I may lose a friend if i did :/