mistycshore

I've though about this before and was just reminded by reading another thread.

I've been through some nasty hangovers where I felt shaky, but felt better by evening. I've never been through the full-blown detox thing. Maybe it's because I only drink beer and I can only put away so much of it (which is like six to 12 beers per night, sometimes more). Obviously, I've drank enough for long enough to do myself permanent damage, but I wonder if it's odd that I never went through the common detox stuff. Anyone else escape that particular nightmare? I wonder if it has to do with volume ingested or some kind of natural tolerance.

CarolD

Hmm...
There are so many variables about de toxing from alcohol
I don't think it's possible to give you an answer.

Here is a link to some of our experiences

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...-we-did-2.html

Good to know you did not have to go thru what some did.

Congratulations on chooseing sobriety

smacked

A lot of us have escaped it.. but a lot of folks have died from it.

Best advice is to always consult a doctor. Detoxing can be fatal.

Glad you are doing well!

Dee74

I usually detoxed from beer - when you drink it for a week or more at a time, sunup to bedtime, it knocks you around as much as anything else does.

D

Taking5

A hangover IS detoxing. I hate to say this, but 6 beers is not very much. If you drank 30 beers a day I am sure you would have more severe detox symptoms. I drank a full bottle of whiskey daily, sometimes more, and I damn near died of withdrawals.

slimjim30

I was predominantly a beer drinker. I probably drank 12-18 beers most nights but sometimes less. I usually had 1 night a week alcohol free. This was for about 9 years. I don't think I was as far gone as some here but I was still drinking way way way too much.

I detoxed about 6 times in the year before I stopped finally. I never had any shakes, sweating, nausea etc. All I had was intense cravings for alcohol. I never made it longer than about 2 weeks before I caved.

The final time that I quit I did so with benzos prescribed from my doctor to prevent any withdrawal symptoms and it was much easier.

Gypsy Feet

my only "symptoms" were feelings of shame, guilt, disbelief and self loathing. Luckily, as with physical symptoms, these feelings go away with abstinence and proper care.

Caria

im still new to this but do not have any of the extreme symptoms...
agitation and cravings is as much as i've felt oh and some bone pains that have gone away but i had those in my whole body for the first few days.

jamdls

I didn't have any major detoxing either but I didn't drink every day and when I did drink I'd sleep for 36-48 hours after, and after the last binge I was unconsious for about 48 hours.

geothinkah

I've detoxed myself when I shouldn't have and have gone into detox when I really didn't need to. My believe now is that it's better to be safe then sorry!

Zencat

At times I was abusing so many different substances at once I didn't know what I was detoxing off of.... I thank my lucky charms that I don't have to go through that mess today .

joedris

I was drinking 1.75 ltrs of vodka a day and the only physical effect I had when going through detox was trouble sleeping for a few days. Never had the shakes, cravings, or any of that. I think the reason for that is that I probably killed off most of my organs by then and there was nothing left to respond to a lack of alcohol. I was also very, very lucky....

streetpizza

My biggest symptoms were anxiety, trouble eating a proper amount of food, and difficulty sleeping well for a few days.

I had the beginnings of some more serious symptoms, I think... sometimes things I was looking at would uh... blink... for lack of a better word (as in, I would be staring at my computer monitor and all of a sudden it would shift a couple inches to the left, even though it wasn't actually moving). I would also get twitches from time to time, almost like a hiccup, just felt like it was coming from the chest moreso than the stomach.

By far, the most disconcerting symptom was the anxiety... everything else mainly served as a trigger for the anxiety.

If I was a betting man, I would bet that the severity of the symptoms depend highly on the level of consumption, the frequency of consumption, the amount of time the abuse had been occurring, any other substance abuse problems, the person's physical condition, and hereditary factors. In other words, I'd think a person's reaction to a detox is highly, highly difficult to predict given the amount of variables.

streetpizza

While I'm at it, here's a question I have:

I've relapsed 2 or 3 times after detoxing, but each relapse was for an extended period of time (IE a week or more)... in anyone's experience, do the withdrawals come back full-bore if you screw up just one night?

Taking5

Not in my experience, no. However, both in my personal experience and corroborated by the medical profession is that if you go on a multi-day binge the withdrawals do come back and each one gets worse than the previous one.

Bamboozle

Hey, misty...I never went through the kind of withdrawal that others here did.

I'm not sure why...sometimes when I quit my levels were fairly high...sometimes not. Sometimes I did cut down before I quit. *shrug*

The worst I ever got was headaches and brainfog...but that carried on for several weeks....so I guess that was post acute withdrawal. *shrug*

The hardest thing for me about quitting was trying not to pick up again during the first three days of sobriety. IDK.

kwigers

Yes people can and do die coming off alcohol. Beer included. There have been many instances in my area where we've actually given small amounts of alcohol to a person detoxing to keep them from going into toxic shock.
It is interesting subject, which would be a very good topic for anyone in recovery to have knowledge and conversation about...what do we do on twelve step calls. What do we do to help another alcoholic when we are all they have, and medical help is NOT available to them for whatever reason.
love and light!~Cheryl

matt88

I had DT's once after drinking mainly beer for about a week straight and then stopping. Thought I was going to die, and started having mild hallucinations like I was on a hallucinogen. Anxiety was through the roof, it was like a prolonged panic attack that lasted for a few hours. Sleep was definitely not happening. I wouldn't wish alcohol withdrawal on my worst enemy, well, maybe THE worst, hehe. I never quit after that, but for about a year afterwards, even when I just had a regular one night drinking session, it would remind me of the time I had DT's, and a regular hangover would induce panic attacks in me.

Anyway, I have read somewhere that AA members used to have alcohol on hand when they got a case of someone who was smack in the middle of DT's, they would give them alcohol first thing to counteract the withdrawal.

spittake

I didn't go through withdrawals either, but I also didn't drink nearly as much as others. 3-5 beers containing at least 7% ABV every night (then sobering up for work), and at least double that for weekend binging. But I'm female and very petite, so the equivalent amounts would be much higher for an average-sized male.

I did, however, once get the shakes after a night of drinking. At the time I was splitting a fifth of cheap liquor with a friend just about nightly for a few weeks. One night, I drank approximately 12 oz. of extremely nasty stuff in a 10 minute period, and I think I took a muscle relaxer or something. The next day, I was shaking badly up until early evening. My vision blacked-over several times, when I narrowly avoided losing consciousness. I was sicker than I've ever been in my entire drinking career. It scared me, but only away from cheap liquor and unnecessarily rapid consumption.

Oh, and for a while, I was experiencing a phenomenon where I would wake early after binging and feel just fine for a couple hours, and then the hangover would hit and I would be sick as a dog until well into the night. The transition was very abrupt.