MidwestGem

When I stopped drinking, I had a semi-rough withdrawal about about 7 months ago. I have had about 6 total relapses and subsequent withdrawals in that time frame, with only the first two cold turkey. When I told my Uncle who is a primary care physician and pediatrician about the symptoms, he did some tests and determined I was going through alcohol withdrawal.

The first one I was anxious, night sweats, increarsed heart palpatations, and insomnia. More an annoyance than anything, it lasted 3 days.

The second one I was anxious, night sweats, insomnia, a panic attack, and very subtle visual hallucinations, lasting 3 days.

On the third one I was prescribed diazapam (Valium) initially and then lorazapam (Atvian). It took like 1 and a half or two days, I felt somewhat zombie-ish at times, but it was pretty painless, and the Valium allowed me to always sleep well. The week after I had some weird dreams, then it was normal.

The 4th one I used the remaining 4 pills I had of Valium and one Atvian and go through it in 2 days basically sedated.

The 5th one I only had 3 Atvian pills from my original prescription, basically got through day one, woke up the next day and went through about 4 days of some tough times. Subtle hallucinations, headaches, nausea, vomited twice, bad night sweats, horrible insomnia, when I did fall asleep I'd have a screwed up dream, then wake up covered in sweat freezing my ass off do to the cold sweat. Bad anxiety, one panic attack.

I just finished my 6th withdrawal (went to a wedding, drank each night (3 times), woke up with withdrawal, previously sober for a month.

I no now that I am not an alcoholic, I don't have cravings, when I drank at the wedding I had 3 drinks or less every, I made that decision before hand and stuck to it. My question is, based on kindling and my past binging in college, did I do some irreversible damage? Is it always going to take some withdrawal if I just want a drink with friends?

Or does brain and liver function, as well as the debated phenomenon of "kindling" all reversible with a health lifestyle and abstinence?

Also, was the benzodiazapine regimen preventing me from having the withdrawal symptoms extend out beyond a day or 3? With out them it was 5 full days and the symptoms seemed to get worse, peak at day 4, then recede off by the morning of day 6. I slept the night of day 6 OK, day 7 was better, by day 8 I got 7 hours of sleep.

Any input is great.

Dee74

We can't give you medical advice here MWG.

Having followed your posts, I'm more concerned about your declaration - again - that you're not an alcoholic - but we've been here before.

I hope you're right. Best of luck to you.

D

Terminally Unique

I'm not going to comment on whether or not you are "an alcoholic," but if you've had SIX withdrawals in seven months, and have had to use benzodiazepines to do it, I would strongly suggest that you not drink again, ever.

MidwestGem

I don't think its bad to be able to say I'm not an alcoholic. Like I said I went over a month (5 weeks a couple days) without drinking on a choice of my own. I am a bartender, I can have a drink whenever wherever I want at work, but I don't, I decided to need to get my body healthy, so I did it.

I went to a weeding, Friday we get into town, watch the Brewers play Houston at Miller Park, I had 2 miller lites.

Woke up feeling...weird would be the word.

Satuday is the ceremony and reception, one glass of cabernet sauvignon and a shot of Jameson with the bride and groom.

Sunday out with some friends from the weeding, went to the Brewers game again, 3 beers.

Woke up today with that familiar thumping heart and anxious feel, woke up last night sweating more than normal.

Why?

Justfor1

I'm confused that if your getting withdrawals, what makes you think that your not an alcoholic??

MidwestGem

At the advice of my doctor he said even mild withdrawal should be treated aggressively because he didn't want to see any signs of "kindling". Like I said, I only took the medicine for a day or two days, 1 MG in the early afternoon, 1 MG before sleep. Very small doses.

MidwestGem

I'm not sure if I did damage when I binge drank for basically 5 years straight in college. Like I said, I never crave alcohol, If required I can cut it out of my life whenever is needed, I just hate that I can't go out for a drink after all that time and still not feel like crap.

Boleo

I relapsed enough times (20 -30) to learn that each time, the DT's grew worse. Alcoholism is always a progressive disease. In the long run, it only grows worse, never better. Long periods of abstinence don't help the situation much, if at all. Even a decade of abstinence might not help the situation, it might make it worse. Ten year-old organs will get weaker as the result of the aging process.

Terminally Unique

So... you feel like crap whenever you drink, and you want to do it some more?

Read the following article. Kindling affects binge drinkers more, and it doesn't usually get better.

NIAAA - Kindling in Alcohol Withdrawal

MidwestGem

The thing that should be noted, after deciding I was going to take some time off from drinking (initally because I gained weight and had graduated school), the subsequent withdrawals were all results of either one night out binge drinking, never more than one, zero times drinking during the day besides the wedding reception where two drinks were consumed, and never more than a total of 3 non binge days in a row.

Why do I still suffer withdrawal? All my research points at kindling.

Soberpotamus

Yes, it's possible you have some damage. Irreversible? Well, you'd need a thorough physical exam and tests done. But the liver is hard to ruin, it takes a lot of damage.

Technically... yeah, you're withdrawing from alcohol any time you drink and then have a time period after where you stop consuming the alcohol. It's leaving your system, and there's going to be physical repercussions because of that.

All the cells in your body regenerate except for nerve cells, from what I understand. And in 7 years time or so, the entire body has regenerated... every cell that can regenerate will have done so in 7 years.

MidwestGem

Haha, the line in that article's first paragraph about aggressively treating even mild withdrawal is important to preventing kindling.

Justfor1

Maybe your not an alcoholic then. I just re-read your post & see thats it's Lite beer. Not much alcohol in those ice cold beers. I have to say though that you are posting in a forum full of alcoholics. If I could "drink a few beers" when at a Cubs game & then simply go home, I would love to. Fact is if I drank a "few" at the game, I would get kicked out of the game & find myself broke & homeless three days later. I'm a little bit jealous of you with the ability to drink "a few" beers & stop. Very triggering post here.

Soberpotamus

Triggering post? Wow. For me it's the opposite... just seems like such a hassle to deal with.

Terminally Unique

After a certain point, something just broke inside, and I could not process the alcohol like I used to. Hangovers took forever to recover from, and I felt horrible whenever I drank. I've heard stories from other people who had a similar experience. If you want to keep chasing that buzz in spite of what your body is telling you, though, I hope you are prepared for the possible consequences.

I actually do know of a way to mitigate the withdrawal, but I'm not inclined to tell you, since I tried it for a while, and all it did was delay, but not prevent, the inevitable: quitting day. It just allowed me to keep on drinking obscene amounts in spite of the previous damage, but eventually the bill came due, with interest.

Spawn

So out of curiousity how do you define an alcoholic?

Terminally Unique

Kindling is only part of the story. In response to chronic alcohol consumption, the body ramps up the MEOS pathway for alcohol metabolism. The end result is that your body breaks down alcohol into acetaldehyde, which is about 30 times more toxic than alcohol, much faster than it used to, but your body has no way to deal with this increased acetaldehyde. Once it is activated, the MEOS pathway does not seem to ever return to its previous lower efficiency levels.

The balance scale of pleasant buzz vs. lots of pain is radically altered towards the pain part.

Spotlight on Alcohol - MEOS Overflow Pathway

Pathways of Alcohol Metabolism : ADH Pathway, Microsomal Ethanol-Oxidizing System

Mariano

My question would be if non alcoholics suffer these things:

Panick attacks, visual hallucinations, bad night sweats, tachycardia, bad anxiety, cold sweats, horrible insomnia, vomiting... Wow!

checkmate1

hmmmm....interesting post. I had no withdrawal myself but have anxiety and panic attacks normally. The benzos stopped you from having the withdrawals. Looks to me everytime you drink from now on you will get withdrawal symptoms and they will only get worse as time goes on. If you continue to drink you will possibly need to take benzos more frequently to curb the withdrawals. You will then get addicted to the benzos and they will stop working so well and you will be left with withdrawal and the benzos will eventually do nothing for you. You will then most definitely have to have a medically supervised detox everytime you drink and want to go sober for a while. Alcoholic or not you are treating your body and mind badly. You might as well go to the substance abuse section of the forum and ask about benzos there as there are people there who use benzos and can tell you more about them as well as addicts.

anew

Well, I was a binge drinker and it was nothing for me to declare to myself, for whatever reason, that I was never going to drink again. I could easily go 6-7 weeks without a drink and without giving it much thought. Eventually, though, I always went back to drinking. The physical consequences of my drinking only got worse with each episode.

Stopping was the easy part. Staying stopped...not so much.