Platypus

Hi, I've been reading everything I can find on this forum about alcohol withdrawal - really helpful and wish I'd found it sooner. So I thought it was time to join and I'd really appreciate some advice / input about my situation (excuse the stupid username - everything else I tried was already taken).

I've been drinking heavily for about 2 years (1-2 bottles wine or equivalent most days), and heavily at weekends before that. I'm 30.

I've been feeling generally weird for quite a while - anxiety, palpitations etc - and have been to the doctors for all sorts of tests (blood work, ECG, chest X-ray), but they couldn't find anything wrong - although he did say my liver enzymes were slightly elevated - tell-tale sign, I guess He said it was so slight it was nothing to worry about, but obviously the addendum there is "yet". I expected the symptoms were connected to my alcohol intake, so I stopped for about 5 days, and the symptoms did all improve. No withdrawal symptoms or anything.

I took my blood pressure on the 3rd, 4th, and 5th days, and it was really good - about 110/75, sometimes even down to 95/70. Resting heart rate good too - 65bpm. I don't do that much exercise, so I thought that looked good.

Anyway, on the 6th day, I drank some - nothing too excessive, 4 beers and a vodka soda, over about 10 hours. Felt fine, went to bed, woke up, still felt fine. I made some coffee, and I probably did over do it - about 3 strong large cups - and as a result started to really, really weird.

When the feelings hadn't worn off that evening, I decided to have a glass of wine to sort of "neutralise" the coffee. I only had a few sips, when I started to feel awful - nauseous, light-headed, anxious etc. I tried to drink through it, but couldn't even manage the whole second glass.

I decided to take my blood pressure again, and it was 135/112! I totally freaked out and nearly called an ambulance, as I know 110+ is potentially fatal. I tried to calm down and took it a few hours later, when it was around 120/90.

So that was on Tuesday evening, 4/5 days ago (it's now 2am Sunday morning). I last took my blood pressure on Thursday, when it was averaging 125/95 (although I was terrified every time I took it that I'd see another insane reading, which probably put a few points on it). I haven't taken it since, because even looking at the monitor makes me anxious as hell, and seeing another crazy reading wouldn't help me at this point.

The other symptoms I have are a tight chest feeling which comes and goes, like I struggle to get a proper deep breath, and weird tingles in my hands, feet, and head. I don't have nausea, loss of appetite, shakes, sweats, or insomnia (no more than usual, anyway - I often stay up late). Oh, and anxiety of course.

My question is, is this alcohol withdrawal? From what I've read, it certainly seems like it, but I'm not sure why it came on in response to coffee rather than alcohol, and why when I drank only a small amount of alcohol, it got worse (as that should have temporarily relieved the symptoms?). I know it's dangerous to quit cold turkey, but I literally couldn't get that wine down, I thought it would kill me - and as I'd drunk only one day before that and not too much, plus 5 sober days and normal BP before that, I thought I'd probably be okay.

Well, I'm still here so far (been over 100 hours since last drink), but I'm really worried about my BP and tight chest, and don't want to do any exercise or really even move much in case I have a heart attack or something.

Added to this I have health anxiety and always think I'm going to have a heart attack anyway. Last ECG was a little under a year ago, and was normal.

Anyway. Enough rambling. Any advice / insight / input anyone has to offer would be very much appreciated.