Dee74

welcome to SR Giggletron - thanks for sharing your story

D

Zebra1275

As others have said, get medical help with your detox.

You've consumed a lot of alcohol everyday for 20 years, your body is going to react when you cut that off.

laurie6781

Hey (((((Giggletron))))) WELCOME to Sober Recovery.

I am looking forward to reading more of your ES&H!

Love and hugs,

micealc

Welcome Giffletron....Just asking insoberiety have you done anything Yet or are you putting it off for now.....
Whatever you do Keep us Posted if you can.....we are all rooting for you.
Im off sick from work at the moment,Anti Biotics...Chest Bottle.I dont like been sick.
I also have a Pinched Nerve in my Spine which is causing Numbness in my Shoulders when I sleep....Im going for an Xray Soon.
I dont know what ahead of me...Physio,Choira Practor,...dare I say it Operation.
In the Past Id have Drank or Druged on things like this.....but the Problem would still remain.
The Higher Power will look after me If I do the Right next thing..Im Sure.
Cheers All.

insobriety

I have not started the detox process yet, all of these stern warnings about doing it myself have really shaken me up. I read a book called "Under The Influence" yesterday and that has scared the **** out of me too.

Ive also come to the conclusion that "tapering off" is not going to work for me, im going to have to embrace detox sickness if I want to put the crutch away.

kat323

make the call and let someone help...you deserve it

Sunny27

Your posts are worrying me. Please have someone with you. Don't gamble with your life.

You can always pay back the bills...

Peter G

Just don't let our stern warnings become an excuse to keep on drinking, yes? And since you mentioned that, I need to elaborate a bit on the "sickness" part as it applies to a medically supervised detox vs. at home...

Alone, at home, on your own, and even with a friend on stand by, you can expect to be absolutely miserable for anywhere from 5 to 14 days (or more), if it doesn't kill you outright. By miserable, I mean completely and totally FUBAR. Of course if you were born with horeshoes in your butt you may not experience what I'm about to describe. However, I wouldn't lay bets on that.

At any rate, no doubt you'll be vomiting, but that's the nicest part of the process really, You'll get used to the retching pretty quickly. It's everything else that really, really sucks. Everything on your body will ache at different times. You'll likely shake, sweat, freeze your a$$ off one minute and think you have heat stroke the next. You'll catch the most exquisitely agonizing headaches in the history of headaches. Those are the real buggers, IMO. The headaches drove me insane.

Oh, you'll also likely start to feel better and think the worst is over after a few days ... then BAM, you're right back in bed sweating, puking, and pounding. Can eyelashes ache? Sure as hell can, when you're detoxing. Someone tiptoeing around 3 floors up? It'll sound like a 747 landing on your cranium. God forbid your skin starts crawling, because that is when things get really bloody annoying. Take some Tylenol for that bloody headache? Pfft. You'll throw it back up in about 5 minutes, every time. So yeah, forget about painkillers and all that other happy crap. You won't keep it down long enough to enter your blood stream and give you relief. And if by some miracle you do keep a painkiller or antacid down? Well I won't go into a description of the explosive diarrhea. I draw the line there.

Sleep? If you're lucky sure. Some can sleep through the worst. Made me jealous to hear that. Me? I was awake for about 6 days straight on my last home alone detox. Couldn't nod off once. No respite from that agony came for 6 days. I sat through it all, every miserable part of it, wide frikin awake.

Now here's the kicker amigo. At a hospital, you will NOT suffer this badly, if at all. In all aspects the doctors and nurses will be treating your withdrawal symptoms as they arrive, and in most cases before they can cause you any significant discomfort. You'll get to sleep, the spiders won't come crawling out of your skin, and if you get a slight headache they will deal with it handily.

Like I mentioned, in my tenure as a certified booze lunatic I detoxed on my own plenty, and on the times when I wasn't rushed to the hospital in critical condition, I suffered so badly that I actually looked at the Oak tree in my back yard and thought of swinging from it - by the neck. The pain was that bad. Thank God I could never tie a knot worth a damn.

Having said all that, there were 2 times I detoxed in a hospital, once with no choice, the next time I would have run to the ER if I could have. Both times I had been drinking far more and for much longer than that which led to all the agony described above. You know what I went through at the hospital? Comparatively, I felt ... slight discomfort. I mean, sure, it was no walk in Bunny Rabbit Park, but the real nonsense that I had gone through home, being Mr. Frikin Tough Guy was just not present at the hospital. They were prepared for everything I was likely to experience, and counteracted most of the worst of it with medications and necessary supplements, all the while monitoring my vital organs.

Look at it this way insobriety, you're conversing here with an entire community of booze hounds. Trust that we know exactly what we're on about when it comes to detoxing, OK? This is one area that we all have in common. In respect to us all saying "get your a$$ to the ER", it's not only about avoiding potential death. That is the paramount concern, sure, but the fact is - at a hospital you WILL NOT suffer as hard or as long as you would doing it at home. And then there's that whole "staying alive" thing.

So yeah, repeating myself at the risk of being redundant, get the hell to the ER and avoid this pesky death stuff, as well as the possible strokes, the psychological and physical trauma, the possible kidney failure, and all that other potentially permanent physical and emotional damage. You don't need to be a martyr, you just need to get sober.

Cob

You sound like you've got some wisdom left insobriety...these people on here are telling the truth in a way like no others can...from experience. My last detox was done at a rehab center and it hurt beyond anything that I've ever felt...of course my drinking had gone to level of something that I had never been to either (it is progressive, more about that later) anyways...they did monitor me for those first three days in the detox wing. That meant that all my time other than eating were spent on that ward. My detox was mild compared to some of the ones that I watched...but it was horrible none the less. I was medicated for the first three days but after that I choose not to take any more valium...it really made me more foggy than I wanted to be but I also know that it was more to help with the tapering off. It was reported to me that "without appropriate care, withdrawal symptoms can include increased blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, severe muscle cramping and seizures" and remember mine was mild...I experienced each one of these. It took my blood pressure two months to finally straighten out. Which was actually very fortunate for me...some people are not nearly as lucky...often people have to be placed on blood pressure meds from there on out. I do wish you well and know that it can be done...quitting drinking that is...but there is a easier softer way, that in this setting is the better way.

Thanks
Cob

laurie6781

Oh (((((Peter G)))))

You have such a WONDERFUL way with words!!!!!!!

You made me laugh and you made me cry as I remembered the he11 of detoxing. Back then, at that particular hospital the only medications I got were for the seizures. Seizures that started when my BAC DROPPED to .38 and my body was CRAVING and NEEDING more alcohol.

With your permission I will copy and paste that to share with some of my sponsees.

Again, thank you for your share Peter. It was a WONDERFUL!!!!!!! Description.

Love and hugs,

Peter G

Thanks for the kudos Laurie and most definitely you have my permission and gratitude as well One thing is for sure, we both know how absolutely rotten it can get. I remember you mentioned your heart stopped multiple times and you were almost toe tagged... yikes!! My heart stopped once only, and as odd as it may sound, I thank God for that every day. Seems we're both extremely lucky folks.

Zebra1275

It's good that you are not going to try to do this by yourself. I've gotten medical help with detox more than once (I'm a slow learner I guess). For me the medical help consisted of checking my vital signs (especially blood pressure) which were good and then getting a perscription for valium to help with the shakes and general anxiety. I usually stopped taking the valium after a couple of days because I didn't want to develop a problem with that.

You don't necessarily need to go to the Mayo Clinic for help! You can go to the ER or immediate care clinic, and in a few hours, if the doctor thinks you are ok, you're done. But you've probably got a prescription to help you, and a # to call if things turn sour.

Zebra1275

I should mention that my detox's were not as rough as Peter's in the post above. But we are all individuals so everyone's situation is different, don't take the chance of doing it alone.

I also should mention that my last detox was 3 days in the hospital because I was drunk when I got there. However the process was the same, monitor vital signs and valium. And I thank God it wasn't worse.

BackToSquareOne

Peter G, you explained it so well, the only things I could add would be the visual and auditory hallucinations and sky high blood pressure. I only got those in the worst of my detoxes but when you think the TV is on to loud because the chatter is driving you crazy and you realize the TV isn't even on, you've got trouble. Then the music or singing would start and you couldn't shut it off, all scary stuff.

The visual hallucinations, seeing things that aren't there, also very scary. Your brain when comming off all that alcohol is in total short circuit mode. Without all the sedation alcohol provides your brain goes into a state of hypervigilance, seems like all the synapses start firing at random, amplifying the real plus throwing a lot of the unreal into the mix. The phone rings and the sound is unbearable, a clocks ticking sounds many times louder. Blood Pressure can skyrocket as the regulatory mechanisms are also going haywire.

All of the above and what Peter describes would be a very extreme withdrawal and I doubt that many people reach the phase of hallucinations but it can happen. All in all it's a game of russian roulette without medical supervision and a very horrible way to die if you happen to draw the short straw.