My worst ever detox was when I quit drinking nearly cold turkey and quit taking my meds at the same time. I couldn't keep the alcohol down to try to ease the withdrawals. I kept seeing my family all over the place, and random people. Inside my house, outside my house, corner of my eye. I was in a complete stupor and as the night came on, the people started to turn into zombies and dead people. My best friend was an evil clown standing outside my kitchen window glaring at me with a nasty grin. I was terrified of the dark. When I closed my eyes there were hundreds of dead people screaming at me and when I opened my eyes Death himself was standing at my bathroom door, waiting for me. All night he watched over me. There was a young dead girl standing in front of him. I'd catch a few minutes of sleep here and there. At one point, I woke up and I was being attacked by a dead girl from the show Deadwood. She was bright blue and screaming at me, on top of me, all I could do was thrash around on all fours in circles, gasping for breath trying to get her off of me. I thought for sure she was going to kill me. Eventually I got my partner awake and he held me and I shook so violently most the time and couldn't stop the body jerking. Soon the dead people turned into yellow floating famous faces. Faces. There were faces everywhere. Women's faces. Baby's faces. Devil's faces. In patterns on the curtains. The walls. The floors. I saw words on my clothes. It was queer at times but that night was utterly terrifying.
The next night was a little better. That's when the music started. I thought someone had pulled onto our yard and was playing music really loudly. Finally I figured out it was in the house. I could hear the country-rock music pretty well. But I couldn't figure out where it was coming from. Finally I thought maybe my cell phone had been left in the basement playing music, or my daughter had dropped it, turned on, down one of the vents. A search turned up nothing. I finally realized I was hallucinating. I could hear this music coming out of the vents... then gregorian chanting coming out of the upper corner of the bathtub, sometimes it was Christmas music, very often it was. Coming clear as day out of random objects or places. I got a very funny look from my partner when I pointed out the music to him that clearly didn't exist.
And, coming out of it, trying to shower and be so racked with shaking that my entire body was tensed, I couldn't stand or bend because I couldn't keep my balance, I couldn't pick anything up. It was awful. And pathetic.
That was my first cold turkey detox! After I had tapered myself off nicely a couple months before. I detoxed many, many times in the past year. Just recounting this makes my stomach clench.
I guess I must be feeling the need to remind myself, as my mind has been feeling complacent lately. I have not done any real work on my sobriety for a number of days. And that shiz up there ^^ to think I allowed myself to go through that not once, but over and over again... yeesh.
I'm raising my coffee and iced tea up to all of us and to another sober weekend!