gantz

One thing that has really been keeping me sober is reminding myself of the worst of times rather than the best of times drinking. Although after only a little over a week of being sober my old drinking mind (separate from the currently sober one) is quickly trying to convince me the bad times were never really that bad. So I will be writing my worst hangover to remind myself...If its not too much to ask could you share yours with me too? These types of things really help to reinforce another of the reasons why I am staying sober.

My own worst hangover:

My last bender was about 2 weeks ago now and pretty much led to the reason for me wanting to clean myself up. It started on a friday. I was only going to have a couple beers with a good friend and it turned into an all night bender that ended with my calling in for saturday school and missing out on the extra pay I usually get for it. I woke up the next day after only about 4 hours of sleep (I can never sleep properly when I drink). My stomach ached, I was dizzy, had a bit of the shakes. I didnt have work for the next 2 days so I figured might as well go back to drinking. So I drank a few beers while I cleaned my house and then another friend called to go out again that night. I figured why not and showed up after already finishing a 6 pack that day. Drank with him and some girls we met. I am totally unsure of the volume consumed. Stumbled home and slept another 4 hours. Woke up and made sunday a day I just myself in and drank beer and vodka all day. I kept faling asleep for 2 hours at a time and then waking up to drink more. This lasted till 5 am and then I had to go to work.

I never drink at work so I pretty much spent my whole day coming down from my drunkenness. Hungover, depressed, full of anxiety, with the shakes, teaching a class of kindergartners. What a winner right? I felt like a pathetic mess (which I was), and my insides felt even worse. Afterward I signed on here and have been sober, but I felt aches and bloating for the next 3 days after.

VeritasAequitas

I'm not prejudice when it comes to hangovers - I hate them all the same!

Tazman53

One of the reasons I may have drank as may years as I did was except for wine I never had a hangover after I was 18, wine was a killer for me, exploding head, going out of both ends at the same time, cotton mouthed, ever muscle acheing. If beer and hard liquor had done that to me I would have quit drinking by the time I turned 14.

justanothrdrunk

The last few years of drinking provided me with little in the area of a hangover. Hangovers were the least of my worries. Long term physical damage, along with social, emotional, and mental problems were the real issues.

That's what I hang on to.

CarolD

Hmm..
I did something similar. I wrote the symptoms of my
last withdrawal kept a copy in my billfold and at home.

When I was tempted to drink again
I read those grafic miserable details
Never again!

Years before I quit ... I knew how to keep hangovers away.
I kept my mind and body slightly saturated with alcohol.
:brick

NewDayNow

My worst Hangover

That Was in 1971. I was 18 years old and in the military. I got together with my friends for a little party in the barracks. I ended up drinking a gallon of wine in about an hour, using a drinking straw, mixed with intermittent shots of some other stuff. I woke up about 36 hours later. I was strapped to a gurney in a military hospital. At the summary hearing, I learned that I had gone totally berserk. Yes, I was in big trouble. I had struck the medic that was trying to restrain me and was almost shot by the military police. I was also told that I came very close to dyeing from alcohol poisoning. This was the ultimate hangover. It took me almost two weeks to recover from what seamed like the walking death. For punishment I shoveled snow every day for two weeks. I didn’t drink again for over a year.

As long as I’m writing about stupid things I’ve done. Yesterday morning I stepped through a rotten floor. My right knee was swollen and turned a bruised ugly blue color. Hurt Like he!! . I took two Vicodin for the pain. They made me feel far too good. I’ve never had a problem with any drug other than alcohol and I don’t plan on developing one. So it was down the commode with the rest of them. Did I say “stupid things I’ve done”.

Yes, they were prescribed.

Ed

Lindsay

Too many to pick just one!

However, the worst hangovers are those that last two days...where I'm unable to keep any food down. I never want to experience one of those again!

Stubborn1

Since I used to binge drink my hang overs were really bad. I would eat healthy and drinnk lots of water so when I would put liquor (Southern Comfort straight) mix it with a full pack of smokes (didn't smoke either) and then probably do coke. Come home stay up till 4am. I would wake up a few hours later sick as a dog, dehydrated. It literally would take me a week or more to feel back to normal.
It just wasn't worth going out to me. I know I don't stop. Oh and waking up not remembering I drove myself was a cherry on it.

least

I just started feeling awful all the time, drinking or coming off a drunk. Always woke up with the shakes. Often woke up early AM and had to have a drink to stop the agitation and get back to sleep.

I looked and felt horrible, but stupidly kept on drinking, even going thru withdrawal every stinking morning.

Now that I'm sober almost 12 weeks I feel better and think clearer. I don't hate myself the minute I wake up and I don't pace the house from the anxiety.

I NEVER want to have those experiences again. I'm getting really good at telling my drinking self to f*** off when she wants to drink. My sober self is getting stronger and can put my drinking self in her place - out of my way!

I am one drink away from that hell hole and I know very well not to take that first drink.

TryingSoHard

I don't get hangovers too often... but I drink so much that I'm still drunk when I wake up, and that makes me feel freaking miserable. I've been lucky - I don't get the shakes. What I DO get is a horrible upset stomach, and that dizziness that makes me question whether or not I'm sober.

Fun stuff.

justme623

Yep, I did the same thing to remind me of just how awful I felt, I keep a journal on another sober site adn go back to read when I have an urge. didn't work this time though, becuase as you said it, adn as I just did this week, after about day 3 you feel better and your mind starts to remind you of how that alcohol tastes, never mind the after effects! I spent 2 days at home in bed last week, couldn't go to work, couldn't take care of my son. It was awful! Every time I would wake from my 2 hour nap, the need to drink , to get rid of the yuckie feeling, yeah like that really helps!

eemag71

last friday. drank 2 bottles of wine and a half a bottle of whiskey and passed out around 5 pmish. woke up at 9 pm and took an antihistamine to go back to sleep/get rid of the nausea and woke up around 5 am. puked from 6 am until 4 pm that day. i had no food or water or anything but i was still throwing up, dry heaving and throwing up stomach acid/bile. i'd throw up and still be nauseous. the hangovers get worse. it used to be that i could throw up and be okay for about 30 minutes and throw up again but now i just stay nauseous. even the drinking doesn't take away the nausea...

JockLarcher

This too is my technique, to remember the the mornings when I knew I was failing my family.
I was never totally incapacitated, I could carry on, but would be hideously nauseous, sweating and unsure of myself. On Saturdys I avoided taking the children anywhere until mid-afternoon for fear of the breathalyser.
The hangovers, and especially Monday mornings, driving to work and fearing once again the morning-after breathalyser. Days of tenth rate professionalism at work as the after effects of senseless, mind-numbing consumption would gradually wear off.
And then the sleepless nights. Go to bed at midnight, awake at 1:30 anxiously tossing and turning till it was time to get up. Cursing the alcohol I could still feel coursing through my veins.
Nothing monumental, just the foul, petty mankiness; the stultifying, stymying ugliness of drink and a man who prefered the amber glitter in the glass to the smiles of his children

gantz

Yeah this pretty much defines my hangovers as well. definitely inspiration to never drink again.

ultimatum

I would have to say the two hangovers that inspire me to never drink again were the ones after being taken to the drunk tank after walking on train tracks in the wee hours of the morning and after being taken to the emergency room in an alcohol-induced mini-coma. A girl on a diet, a pint of Jack Daniels and good couple healthy swigs of Stoli do not mix well!

todd6138

i woke up in a jail cell after I apparently fired a .357 magnum at an old friend of mine off my front porch.. it was county jail in july and about 100+ degrees and I was detoxing heavily with hallucinations of spiders crawling over me and night sweats!

Boleo

I went way beyond hangovers. I went all the way DT's Hallucinating stage. I saw:

Wallpaper on the ceiling

Armies of ants on the carpet

Constant movement on both sides of my vision

TV shows with the sound turned all the way down and the power turned all the way OFF

nandm

My worst hangover? The last five years of my drinking which was a continuous hangover/blackout/drunk.

zendust

Hey Boleo, I hear you. DT's and hallucinations...large spiders slowly descending from the ceiling while large large ropes of their webs restrained me on my bed. Constantly hear my name being called out while I was completely alone in the house.

What hangovers? I drank round the clock.

PTSD

Thank you for starting this thread. I'd been missing it for the last few weeks (11 months yesterday.) Reading this has turned my stomach quite effectively. I only got hangovers when I was trying to show off. I think my last real severe hangover was when I was 22 and my only real memory was that I was drinking with a few guys after getting off of work at 6AM and was already happily drunk from beer and rum when the liquor store opened and I bought a bottle of Wild Turkey along with whatever and cracking it open in the parking lot. My next clear memory was about two days later. I went from an occasional young idiot to a regular drinker to deal with my PTSD and found then that I'd rather be buzzed than plastered. I had a couple of slight ones when going through hurricanes Francis and Jean while living South Florida. I just had nothing else to do but drink while sitting in the dark. Later on I was reading the newspaper and saw that it was found out that out of all the things people stocked up for the hurricanes number one, far and away, on list of what the local stores were selling was beer.