bee62

Tib-

You cannot "cure" the pain in your side with vitamins, belive me I tried. I took NAC, Liver Tonic by Solar Ray, GABA, Dandelion tea, Milk Thistle...you name, I ingested it, all the while thinking I could still drink if I "protected" my liver. the pain you feel in your side is most likely your liver. Mine would be tender for two or three days and I could not straighten up without pain.
My lower back would ache-kidneys.....my stomach would burn-reflux and ulcer.

The shame and guilt will continue as long as you continue to do what you ultimately know is harmful to your body and psyche. You may not kill your self directly with alcohol comsumption-but you damn sure have a distinct possibility of killing yourself by leaving yourself open to people taking advantage of you, falling, driving drunk...hell, you don't even know where you have been or where you will end up in any given situation. I am not trying to be harsh-but I will have to side with TAZ here-why are you asking if you do not want to recover? There are so many options and you seem to find an excuse for each of them. I have done the same-I am as stubborn as they come, but when my body started f__king up, I listened.
PLEASE PLEASE get help somewhere-do not accept death as the only way out. We care or we would not reply.....everyone is worth support and HONESTY, thats what you will get here.

Melissa

St_Kurt

So, based on this post and your description of pain in the "right side of your stomach" from your first post - basically what you are describing is probably intestinal trouble.

Your stomach is very high in your abdomen - almost under your ribcage. When your stomach hurts, you'll feel it when you breathe. Anything that hurts in the neighborhood of your bellybutton is intestinal. Plus - it would be very hard to pin point "right" or "left" in your stomach because the organ is quite small and we don't have enough sensory nerves to really get that accurate.

As for what you're feeling: alcohol messes with the body's ability to absorb nutrients through the cells in the intestines. (It's why you get diarrhea when you have a hangover a lot of the time...) The pain is most likely cramping due to abnormal "peristalsis" <-- the rhythmic movement of stuff through the intestines.

Vitamins are a good idea. Alcohol competes with B vitamin absorption. And seeing a doctor is a good idea, though the good news is that the cells in the intestines are constantly being renewed. You get a new set every day actually. To make the pain go away - all you need to do is not drink for a day or two and you get a shiny new set of intestinal cells and everything is normal again*.

As for liver questions, I'll reference my own post: http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...planation.html

-e


* This is assuming there is no underlying disease process other than irritation from alcohol consumption. Remember I'm not a doctor, I'm a student. And even when I graduate, I won't be an MD, I'll be a vet. So take everything I say with a grain of salt and see a real doctor if you feel you need to. Anything I say should not be substituted for actual medical advice, but rather as further impetus to seek advice from a true licensed professional.

tiburon88

Thanx everyone, I have been sober now for a couple of weeks. I don't have the stomach pain anymore. I can relate exactly to the post about tolerance going haywire. I went to a Smart Recovery meeting, however, I was the only one there. I do attend 2-3 AA meetings a week.
That's about all I can take. My experience with AA is different from most posters on the board here. I have learned through these 6-7 days of relapse that alcoholism is progressive.
I like the idea of one day at a time right now. I ran into my very first sponser from 4 years ago at a meeting and the first thing he said was, "I can't believe your still alive!" lol

SaTiT

Tibb,

My sponsee draged my arss back into recovery after I relapsed.
The kid checked up on me and walked me through all of it, becuase
I was stupid sick.

mmm...talk about being humble.
Sponsership is very important

Sugah

Hence the expression, "Be nice to the newcomer. S/he might be your sponsor some day".......?

Peace & Love,
Sugah

girlindc

blackouts ARE very scary. i blacked out pretty much every time i drank, woke up hating myself the next day because i had no idea what happened, but always assumed i had done something i would regret (if i only knew what it was!). really stupid of me to continue drinking and using after all those times right?
i defly put myself in to a LOT of dangerous situations too, and coming out of a blackout in a situation you never thought you would want to be in is the worst. i hear this sometimes at meetings "not everyone who drinks blacks out, but everyone who blacks out drinks" or something similar to that. anyway take care of yourself.

mikel60

Hey Tiburon.,
Glad to hear you're doing better. My sadistic (and sober)little brother used to make up wild stories about me doing crazy stuff while in a blackout. He thought the look of abject terror on my face as I tried to recall these "events" was hysterical. He knew I couldn't remember a thing.
Not so funny - I posted this before: I knew this guy about fifteen years ago. A railroader. He drank a little too much, but was a nice quiet guy. So we thought. He woke up one morning with a hammer in his hand. It was a little sticky and he wondered why he had brought it to bed. He got up to wash his hands and tripped over the dead body of his wife. She had been bludgeoned to death. He swore in court that he didn't remember a thing.
Blackouts are no joke.
Mike

collinsmi

Man, that's one UGLY liver picture!