NightNDay

It's been just long enough that I'm starting to develop amnesia about how rough the hangovers used to be. I want to keep it fresh in my mind just how bad "the day after" was -- I would lose an entire day to being sick. It was almost like having the flu, only on top of the physical symptoms I would have extreme anxiety, remorse, regret, and depression.

I read an article recently with some celebrity (I think it was Amy Poehler) talking about how she had to quit doing cocaine because she could no longer handle "the day after." What she described as a cocaine comedown actually sounded strikingly similar to my alcohol hangovers. (I have never tried cocaine -- thank God.)

Just so I don't EVER forget, I wanted to write this out. I was hoping others could maybe share some of their own memories, because I am sure they are very similar.

THE DAY AFTER DRINKING

--Wake up very early, maybe 5 a.m. I'm in a cold sweat. I'm dying of thirst so I drink so much water/juice/cola that I make myself bloated. I am ravenously hungry but also nauseous.

--Memories of the night before come rushing back, in pieces. I am horrified by what I can remember, and even more horrified by the fact that there are things I don't recall.

--Basic movement is hard. I am finding it difficult to walk without falling over, but I somehow drag myself into the kitchen and binge on junk food. If there is no junk food, I drive to McDonalds and order an insane amount of crap for breakfast. A typical order would be something like 3 sausage biscuits, hash brown, fried chicken biscuit, bacon egg and cheese biscuit. (My eyes are bigger than my stomach, and because I don't want to leave the house for the rest of the day, I order too much.)

--I somehow make it home, but it's torture. The McDonalds is only two minutes from my house, but I really shouldn't be driving.

--I go home and binge eat some of what I've bought. I start feeling very sick to my stomach. I put the rest of the food in the fridge, planning to eat it later.

--I vow to NEVER do this again.

--I call/text/email and cancel whatever plans I had for the day. When I was working, this meant calling in sick. (No wonder they fired me!)

--I pop 1mg Ativan and try to go back to bed. This "Ativan trick" worked beautifully in the beginning, but it no longer works anymore. My anxiety is still hitting me full force so I pop another Ativan. It seems to help a TINY bit, but basically it just puts me to sleep.

--I sleep all day. I don't answer the phone, I don't take my dog out when he needs to go.

--It's a fitful sleep, where I really just toss and turn for 6-8 hours. In between sleeping, I look up stupid crap on the internet and browse Facebook. I watch some crappy daytime TV. All of this makes me even more depressed.

--Thoughts flood in about how awful my life is and how much I hate myself. I halfway wish I was dead.

--I have an awful stomach ache and an awful headache. I try eating some more junk food. I microwave the McDonalds (if I went there that morning) and it tastes horrible.

--I'm still hungry (even though my stomach hurts) so I check my bank account. It's nearly empty, so I start searching the house for change so I can drive to the convenience store and buy some salty chips and assorted junk food. When times were still "good," or if I have a little money in my account, I order Chinese delivery or a pizza. Again, I get way too much food.

--If there's any leftover alcohol (usually there is not) I will have a couple of small drinks "just to take the edge off."

--The day mercifully comes to an end and I go to sleep vowing to never, ever do this to myself again. However, I will repeat the process again in a day or two.

doggonecarl

This is very similar to a post I responded to the other day. I'll repeat what I wrote then...

...It's not the memory of my hangovers or shameful drunk episodes that kept me sober. These were quickly forgotten. All I had to remember was my decision to never, ever drink again.

ardy

a hang over memory.. not mine but one I caused no kidding.. hahhaha
worked at Burger King back in the 1980's with a great group of kids from 16-25 and I was one of those 30 somethings hahahah and a Mom ... It was 9:30am on a Sunday Morning prep time for some of the fast foods back then... in wandered the gang Big All P's Ray Mc Doug Big Dan and Bernice hahahah they were all 10 shades to the wind.. Ray ok now if we all walk soft we can get thro this.. What I shout in my best stage voice.. shshshshshs came from the group What you can't hear me.. I shouted again..shshshsh Big Dan walked like his feet would fall off . hahahaha Ardy look we were all out for Doug's 21st birthday party oh ok I said softer.. so could you keep it down a bit. Why Ray answers cause we are hung over.. of course you all know that that lead to to many monkey shines ahhahah ending with me and a big metal spoon in the huge wash tub that was also metal.. ahhahaha the place rang like church bells.. they were chasing me like Sat night live on stage.. they could not keep up. we were laughing so hard MR. Duff the owner stepped in it was 10:15am 45 minutes to open and nothing in place... Last time he shouts in his Scottish Roar that I buy drinks for a group like you all... well the place was in order and I kept passing out cold wet wash cloths and making coffee.. hahahahah funny when I do this type of a story I remember the smell of the coffee that day.. can almost hear the groans.. ahhahahah wonder where that great group fo clowns are today.... later all its Friday night the sun is goinng down in the west pizza some place.. and my daughter needs to touch base from Chi town.. love prayers and hey do you need someone to get reallY LOUD ahaahahahaha love to all ardy...

jryan19982

pretty much man... pretty much.

Aellyce

I found that in the first couple months of my sobriety, negative reinforcement (recalling these awful hangover days or hearing stories of relapses) helped me a lot to stay away from the drink. As time passes, I'm finding that these memories and my initially strong reactions to them fade and what works now is recalling the accumulating great days, new perspectives, and new levels of life that are only possible in sobriety. This was something that immediately attracted me soon after putting down the drink and hearing what people with longer term sobriety had to say. It was like a magnet for me, and still is, except that now I have my own story of how much better life can get. And ultimately, this has become a much stronger reinforcement to stay sober and experience even more of the good stuff. But as I said, in the beginning using the fear to stay away from the drink can be a very powerful tool.

Thepatman

Good trick, remembering what got us to sobriety is a good idea.

Like someone that get's rich somehow, never forgetting how poor they were is a great way to remain humble.

If I ever get smart, or appear to show that MY sobriety solution is the only way, someone slap me back to humility. He he!

tomsteve

I cant remember all the Hangover memories
But I won't forget that It can get worse if I chose to drink.

Serenidad

WOW! Your story sounds like mine! It doesnt sound fun, does it? Thanks for your post! It really helped me today. Im only on day 12 and Im already forgetting...that's why I try to go to AA meetings every day and read posts here on SR. When I see the new people come in...they remind me how bad it is out there.

mavrick

I just drank my hangovers away, and prolonged the agony of reality.

Tonymblue

Same here.

1 drink all day and night.
2 dry heaving wakes me up about 6 hours into sleep for a drink
3 have that drink or 2
4 sleep till 7
5 get up dry heave again
6 have a drink if theres any left
7 otherwise try to chug a beer in garage. First one usually doesnt stay down
8 feel little better because threw up something
9 chug 2 more
10 coffee
11 good till about noon
12 see step 1

Its become so vivid since ive done it so many times. Cant go back

bucolic

Oh I remember them well. My junk food of choice was a Wendy's Triple and Extra Large fries.

I cringe when I think of how it used to take me 2 days to feel better again the last couple years of my drinking. As I got older the hangovers hung on longer.

What I really regret more than the feeling of the hangover though is all the weekends I missed laying on the couch recovering from my Friday night binge. Gorgeous sunny summer days, crisp colorful Fall days, the beauty of a Winter snowfall, and the colors of Spring. Days I will never get back...totally and utterly wasted. Truly years of my life I missed with family and friends laying on the couch in agony.

Stay the course...I'm going on 3 years without a hangover and weekends are glorious!

Alchemist1978

Yes. This was me. Minus the coffee because of the anxiety. I would just drink and pass out and repeat for many days..........Cannot forgot that vicious cycle.

BigShoe

All that wasted time. Wasted.
Thanks bucolic

True.
I hid from friends and family vowed never again. After the hair of the dog. Well tomorrow then. Repeat. No rince.

michael1111

I stopped getting hangovers except when I really got drunk. Dangerously drunk. I've looked it up and my tolerance got so high that the level at which serious complication should occur, didn't. Which is a bad sign. A good sign for the adaptive abilities of our bodies, but still, it shouldn't come to that.

I now remember that a few years ago, I had a few nights where I stopped breathing. Instead of the healthy response, I just thought: "It'll pass" and went back to sleep.

Right now I'm sober when I would be drinking. Sleep is not really an option, but at least I'm sober for the first time. And I feel like taking a walk! I'll keep it easy though, I have a doctor's appointment coming up and most likely rehab after that.

resolute50

Dehydrated, drinking cups and cups of water.
Throw up,not even look at food till night time.
Rinse and repeat...

SDH73

Drinking water so I would have something to throw up, just so I could feel better for a few minutes.

Frantically look for someone to cover my shift later that night. If I found someone, I would have "just a couple of drinks" to kill the hangover. End up drinking all night again. Next day, frantically look for someone to cover my shift...

MelindaFlowers

Oh my gosh, I could have written that post about myself. Everyting down to the Mcdonalds trips! It was about two miles from my house as well, but that drive in the glaring sunlight was painful, every block of that drive. I would pull up to the drive through looking like a total mess. I would be wearing the extra large t-shirt that I would have slept in the night before, often covered in toothpaste from brushing my teeth in a blackout. My passenger seat was covered in crap because I never cleaned my car. I would order my food and pull up to the window, horrififed about how I looked but at the point, who cared? I would also order an insange amount of food. During my last hangover-Mcdonalds trip this past past June they were offering a meal with two 10 piece nuggets, two medium fries, and two large sodas. I ate the whole thing when I got home. This was of course followed by massive diarrhea.

I had an insatiable, almost inhuman appetite during hangovers and what I wanted was fast food. I would eat between 2,000-3.000 calories on the couch, holding my head.
During hangovers it was painful to keep my eyes open but I couldn't rest at the same time. I didn't have benzos to dull the pain.

I would drink between two to three liters of water and not urinate until late that evening around 10 pm. It was easy to measure the amount because I would fill the mixer bottle (ginger ale) which was two liters. Over the entire day I would drink two to three two-liter bottles of water. Did I feel any better? No?

My guy worked Saturdays so I could rest on the couch until 5 pm when I knew he's be heading home. I would drag myself into the shower so I could meet him at the door showered and dressed and pretend that I had not spent the entire day on the couch feeling like I was going to die or either liver failure or a heart attack.

During hangovers, which were every weekend, I would wonder what would kill me first: liver failure? Pancreatitis? Cancer? Esophegeal varices? Alcohol poisoning? Dehydration? Heart problems? STroke? Did I have wet brain? I must have wet brain at this point. Why did my feet hurt? Alcohol neuropathy? What would kill me first?

Later in the day it would go one of two ways:

1. I would not drink and wait it out. Around 10 pm I would start to think about bed. I was in a very weird fuzz, like I couldn't move but going to sleep actually sounded nice. That was if I had stayed sober that whole day. Usually I would sleep pretty well that night.

2. I would drive myself, now that I was showered and dressed to the liquor store. The first vodka and soda gave me some of the most bizarre physical sensations known to man. It tasted horrible and almost made me barf but was oddly comforting at the same time. I knew that after four of five vodka and sodas I would start to feel better. Better in this case meant drunk rather than hungover. Normal people, non-alcoholics would consider this anything but feeling good.

After four to five drinks I began to feel like myself. I'd start calling people, chatting on the porch with my guy, surfing the net. The same crap I did while drinking.
I rarely drank as much the night of a massive hangover as I would on other days when I was only medium hungover. I would often wake on Sunday not feeling quite as a bad as Saturday but often I would feel just as terrible.

During my hangovers I would close my eyes and begin to dream but was never asleep. It was a weird middle-world where you are not awake or asleep. When I would fall asleep I would wake and feel better for about 30 minutes before I would realize I felt just as terrible as I did before the nap.

This was my EVERY Saturday and Sunday for about five years. EVERY Saturday and Sunday.

Even watching movies was painful. My mind was so sick that I couldn't even pay attention to TV shows.

I would be on the couch under a blanket going between feeling like I was burning up and sweating to cold and shivering. Back and forth all day.

The awareness that the whole world was moving along outside really depressed me. Especially when it was sunny and warn outside. People out jogging? Shopping? Having fun? All of this going on while I was dying on the couch.

If someone were to walk in on me during one of my hangovers they would have thought that I was suffering from some terrible disease.

Tonymblue

If i three wishes, numero uno would be a cure for this damn disease.

MelindaFlowers

Oops, I forgot a few lovely details.

During hangovers my liver would throb. Throbbing kind of like a heart beating. Like it would get a little larger and smaller. Every now and then I would feel an electrical-like zap in my back and also liver area.

This might sound crazy but it's true: I could have taken a sharpie marker and drawn the outline of my liver on my front and side. Well maybe the accuracy would not of been perfect but it was very aware from the pains and strange feelings of right where it was just how big it was etc. how I am alive I don't know.

These types of hangovers began around 2012 and I drank everyday for two more years.

Oops. Almost forgot the acid reflux that felt like bleach in my throat. I thought my throat might explode.

Tonks

Jesus. Thank you Melinda for painting a very vivid, and depressingly familiar, portrait of addiction.

I remember trying to force myself to vomit in the shower and getting abdominal cramps because I was so dehydrated and malnourished. I remember waking up at 3am to stumble to the kitchen to chug water and then taking a shot "just to take the edge off" and that shot turning into an all weekend binge. I remember waking up face first on the bathroom tile. I remember drunk dialing and then getting defensive when they ask if I've been drinking. I remember staring up at the stars and cursing them, demanding why I couldn't just be happy. I remember staring at the shotgun wondering if today was going to be the day.

Most of all I remember telling the lie, telling her I didn't love her so she would leave and stop trying to save me.