jamesMM

I quit.
probably 2-3 months ago.

I was a daily drinker, not heavy maybe a couple each night for years(up to 4 occasionally). My weapon of choice has always been nice expensive beer. I collect micros. I drink for the taste and as a relaxing activity.

I was unsure of the health consequences and decided to take a break.
I was also starting to feel like hell between drinking sessions I think this was
the start of tolerance and dependance.

The first week was ok
simple fatigue, brain fog, etc.

Over the last 60 days. I have had weird stuff constantly. Fevers off and on. Waking up sweating. Waking up feeling like I have been run over by a truck. Neck tension. Jaw tension. TMJ like issues. Headaches. Weird Muscle spasms in my face. Fluttering in my lungs right side. Sleeping problems.

This started after I quit. I am confused. My Doc even took blood checking for lime disease. I check out fine.

Why did I quit for this?

sailorjohn

Since none of us are doctors we can't tell you, but you might consider seeing a doctor that specializes in addiction health issues.

WELCOME

jamesMM

I did see a doc. I mentioned the alcohol and was told "Nah thats over with"

I am not here for a physical just looking for fellow aftershock buds

Tommyh

I never realized how screwed up I was until I quit drinking James.My head hurt on and off for a yr.I had a lot of physical problems that dragged on for a long time.
I believe I had problems with stress,and malnutrition,since I never took care of my health.Probably many others.You may be doing the same.You may have several problems at once.
I treed to eat and sleep on a regular basis,and drink plenty of water and drinks like Gatorade.
Now,20 yrs sober, I found out today I have been having something called "optical migraines" oh well,not gonna drink over it

Texasblind

I'm not a doctor (we have to preface everything with this, don't we?), but research PAWS symptoms. CarolD has a sticky at the top I think. or it's in the Withdrawal What to Expect thread. I've been sober for over 90 and sometimes I still sweat all night or have weird "withdrawal" style symptoms. Everything I read says it's gonna take 6 - 12 months to get physically back to normal.

To answer your question: You quit because it's the right thing to do and the healthy choice. Yes, I feel more sick sometimes now than when I was drinking. I just keep reminding myself that it took 3 years to get to this point, it's gonna take some time to get out.

jamesMM

Good points. I just feel so flattened by this. I mean I feel so much worse than I ever did on the beer. I just read the PAWS. I guess I don't understand it much as my symptoms seem unique. Or maybe I just want to be original? Am I unique? If this is unique then no thank you.

I have also had a few days where I felt horribly depressed, felt like my world was over. Needed a long cry(it can be manly). Then fine the next day.

best

Worked with a guy that his Dr explained things so well.

When we were drinking, we had all those things but didn't notice them because we were always to drunk to see them. Once we sobered up, we see and feel all the things that the alcohol was covering up.
If we didn't stop, we wouldn't see them and thus would die sooner for lack of proper treatment.

We can spend years screwing up our body..it can take a few months for it to start to feel right again.

Keep checking with your Dr as you feel the need. If he isn't helping you find answers...maybe ask another Dr and see what they think.

CarolD

Welcome....

By 2 months of sobriety
I was back in balance mentally and physically.

Years later...when I developed an incurable eye disease
arthritis and diabetes ....Wow! I was so pleased
that I knew how to handle medical issues.

Being sober for me is vital for my health.


Hope you do feel better soon.

sobergirl77

That's weird - I am in the same boat. I'm on day 28 and my old sponsor told me that I should have been over the physical already. But I am not, either.

Anyway, hang in there... you aren't alone, and going back to drinking won't help matters! (Something I keep telling myself too).

navysteve

jAMES SAID: This started after I quit. I am confused. My Doc even took blood checking for lime disease. I check out fine.

Why did I quit for this?

This is exactly why we quit drinking, to face life on its terms. This is not easy, changing everything we ever knew. But remember, people have been where you are right now. Many of us felt exactly as you do. The physical stuff will pass ( with a doctors help perhaps) the mental stuff may pass with the twelve steps. I know it did for me. You may need outside help. Many of us come in the rooms with multiple issues. I hope you have a good sponsor ( A good sponsor only shares their experience, strength and hope about the 12 steps)

22NGONE

James,

Over 100 days and I'm still fighting the fog and trying to figure out who I am. Whether mental or physical, time will heal. PAWS info from Carol, thank God, helped me stop doubting my sanity. So I take each day one at a time and know that someday six months to a year all will be well. It also helps keep me sober because I keep thinking I don't want to go through this again.

John

Zanthos

When I stopped drinking, I was faced with anxiety, anger and low self-esteem issues that had been nicely medicated away by daily alcohol (and marijuana) consumption. I had crying bouts for many months. It took well over a year to be able to live comfortably in my own skin, although I had moments of experiencing a sense of well-being along the way.

Some people take their anxiety and other emotional problems to mental health professionals who will take what you tell them and fit it into a pre-defined disorder, and typically recommend that you be treated with prescription medications. I chose not to follow that path, having had experience with the mental health profession, and having been diagnosed with a number of mental health disorders before getting into recovery.

I found that working the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous consistently over a period of years has gone a long way towards straightening out the severe emotional kinks that plagued my psyche for many many years.

navysteve

"Some people take their anxiety and other emotional problems to mental health professionals who will take what you tell them and fit it into a pre-defined disorder, and typically recommend that you be treated with prescription medications."

Medical professionals work great, the problem is, that we make terrible patients. We are the ones who are less than forthcoming, yet we blame the doctors who treted us based on what we tell them. The twelve steps do work great, but they are no "cure all"

Signal30

That's what recovery programs are for. Recovery programs don't only help you get and stay sober but they also help you deal with life sober. They can help you take on tasks and problems that we usually drank over.




Tom

chip

Welcome James
I hope you feel better soon. Quitting drinking can really open us up for feeling stuff that we didn't feel when we drank. PAWS has varing levels of effects on most ex-hard drinkers who stop. Depression, anxiety, insomnia, and an array of physical symptoms are not all that unique. I know I went though this for a couple months after I quit.

The main thing that many of us find is the importance of "filling the void". My "weapon of choice" was expensive micro-brews as well...not that this is all that important. I found that when I quit, I tore out a major part of my life. I had a large gap left where my drinking was.

In some ways, I grieved the loss of my "best pal" when I quit. I also lost my #1 coping mechanism.

Some of my tension was a result of not being able to relax. Drinking beer always relaxed me, and the more I depended on it to relax, the more vulurnable to tension I was when I quit drinking. I had to learn other ways to relax.

For a couple months after I quit, I'd get a tense feeling in my jaw. I realized this was a stress thing.

For some of us, it takes a while for life to get better after stopping. Developing new habits and coping mechanisms takes time. For me, drinking was such a major part of my life...it took time to re-build a sober one. There was a time where it was awkward, but it got better. AA helped me, but I know it isn't for everyone. Some people throw themselves into work, church, hobbies...or whatever.

I hope you'll be able to stick with it, and make it work for you. Sobriety doesn't have to "suck". It can get better. Keep up the good work.
chip

erika08

Hi James,

This is my first post so hi to everyone.

Well, I quit drinking and smoking cold turkey 3 days before the end of 2007
and just one month ago I was in emergency at the hospital with terrible stomach pains. Turned out to be a ruptured bowel and I was lucky it
contained itself. They say this kind of thing is most commonly caused by the bacteria pylori and I'm sure that's true but I'm also positive it was caused by
years of alcohol abuse building up acid in my stomach. It just decided to surface after I quit. Lucky that! I mean that really was lucky because I
can't imagine being able to recover from that and withdrawal.
A naturapath once told me alcohol take YEARS to leave the system.
You are doing brilliantly! You are becoming aware of yourself and listening
to parts of your body that have been anaesthetized- so keep up the good
work and let the doctor know everything too.

CarolD

erika08 .....Thanks for sharing

Welcome to our Alcoholism Forum!

bigredme

Hello dear. Two things...I hope the Dr. checked your Thyroid (many of your symptoms sound like symptoms people with thyroid issues have). It could also just be that (although you weren't consciously using it as such) the beer turned into a coping mechanism which relieved stress...you've removed the beer but the stress is still there...ain't you're not using to handling it without. First advice would be ...see another Dr. just to be sure. Meanwhile, you could see a therapist to help you transition into sober living and start doing meditation before bed just to wind down. Good luck dear and please let us know how you are making out.
bigred

Tazman53

James please take the time to get a second opinion, when you do that make sure you are being brutally honest about your past alcohol intake and also make sure you include any other meds legal and illegal you were/are taking.

I was over the worst of the physical symptoms in a week, the mental aspect took a lot longer, I have heard many times that mental issues can create physical symptoms, so possibly seeing a shrink could help as well. Brutal honesty will set you free.

Zanthos

I agree that we make terrible patients. But I strongly disagree that medical professionals work great.

Maybe when it comes to certain types of injuries and a very limited number of diseases, medicine knows what it is doing. But on the whole, medicine is deeply ignorant of the human organism. This is clearest when it comes to mental health and emotional well-being issues.

I have been diagnosed as bi-polar, depressed, affect disorder, anxiety disorder, psychotic, PTSD. And I have been prescribed medication for all those "disease states". In my opinion, all that stuff is BS. Bottom line is, I was a person in a lot of pain. We all carry around a lot of pain. If we can't get to the root of that pain and let go and suffer through the experience of letting go, we will be bi-polar or depressed or anxious. If you buy into the notion that you were "born with a congenital condition" and that you have a "physical brain chemistry disease" and that you will need to take psychiatric drugs for the rest of your life, well you have let ignorant modern medicine define you as a diseased and disfigured person, and you have chosen out of desperation and a lack of alternatives to embrace that definition of yourself.

The medical understanding of the complexes crudely labeled PSTD, ADD, ADHD, etc. is inadequate. Most thoughtful and honest health care professionals will admit that their professions don't really understand the fundamental nature of these disorders. The drug therapies prescribed are based on the fact that as a culture that is all we know how to do. And most of these drugs do create a significant measure of relief for the sufferer. But it's a toxic band-aid on wounds we don't know how to properly treat. And the idea that there is some basic biochemical disorder that accounts for these condition is simply wrong.

Sadly, people "affected" with these "disorders" are so desperate (I know I was) that we believe it when someone in apparent authority tells us we have a "disease". And we are so relieved to have some kind of understanding, even a false one, of why we feel the way we do, that we buy into the whole scheme lock, stock and barrel.

The truth is that we feel sad, manic, anxious, skittish, unfocused, angry, disturbed, sad, suicidal, homicidal, frustrated, hopeless, and without direction and purpose for very good reasons. We feel this way because we are healthy individuals reacting to deeply disturbing conditions in our environment.

The biggest problem we face is two-fold: (1) at the time of our deeply disturbing experiences (usually throughout most of childhood), we were essentially isolated (despite our family and social groups) and had no one to turn to for comfort and understanding; so we could not heal, and (2) because of #1 we have carried around these emotional/psychic injuries, have continued to re-experience their pain on many levels of our being, and have perceived and acted in the world as injured persons, thereby reinforcing our experience of the injuries.

The solution is to feel that "original pain" in all its existential horror, to process it out, and to be free from it. Sadly, we are incapable of doing that individually -- we need the support and companionship of others to be able to safely process out our pain.

Also, having carried around that pain for so long, we have become completely habituated to holding tightly onto that pain -- in a futile effort to control and manage it. Much of our entire being and the structure of our consciousness has become devoted to managing and distracting ourselves from this "original pain".

So "letting go" of that pain is the literal opposite of what our personalities and consciousness are oriented toward and generally capable of doing. And therefore relinquishing that pain is an extremely difficult and indescribably painful thing to do. For that deep toxic emotional sludge -- pushed down, yet nurtured and empowered -- to express itself after often decades of submersion is true agony. We can't bear it. So we continue to hold onto it.

In any case, most of us with these so-called psychiatric disorders are essentially perfectly healthy human beings who are being over-medicated with extremely powerful psychotropic drugs. It is sad that a better way does not exist to deal with the legacy effects of traumatic emotional disfigurement.