aziggen

I keep on getting a message from SR telling me it has been a long time since I posted something (Feb 2007), so here is something.

I am on day 109 sober. I’ve been damaging myself for about nine years and I can attest to this being a progressive disease. I have been constantly quitting the entire time, three weeks here, six weeks there. I had three spells of over or around three months and 1 as long as nine months.

I have found every possible way to relapse. Of course everyone’s favorite the…”I can drink socially now” (“ICDSN”)…let me tell you a secret, you can’t, you are an alcoholic and within two weeks you’re going to be drinking more than before. A sub set of ICDSN is the “great news let’s celebrate”, same thinking same result. There is always the “stress drinking to escape” route, for my career problems this was #1, it let me hide in the bottle to make the stress go away however it tripled my stress and anxiety when I had to face the problem sober.

Care for a great incentive not to relapse? Have a specialist tell you,
How I got to be on the receiving end of this conversation:

• November 6th, after a five bottle of wine weekend I quit for the 1000th time. I had about 15 leftover Ativan that I had received for anxiety about six months before, after I’d lost my job. I used seven of them over the next three days. Overall a rather painless withdrawal.
• Three weeks later I went to my family Dr. because my digestive system wasn’t right (explosive gas, constipation, I’ll save the gory details) and I needed a prescription refill for my acid reflux meds. Told the Dr. about my stomach problems, he did the BP and heart rate tests and then told me to remove my shirt. He poked and tapped around and then told me to put my shirt back on said he would be right back. A few minutes later he returned, he told me that he would call in the prescriptions and gave me an address for a nearby hospital. He told me that I had ascites (fluid collecting due to liver damage) and I should be looked at immediately, he told me not to go home and pack but just go, there would be a Dr. waiting for me. BTW not the most enjoyable drive I’ve ever done.
• Once at the hospital I saw the Dr. for about 5 minutes, I was put on a vitals monitor and then nurses came in on three different occasions to draw blood for various tests. About five hours later I saw another Dr. who did a quick ultrasound, went over my tests at a really high level and told me basically that we first need to drain the abdomen, then start looking at the other issues (and of course don’t drink). They would call me in the next few days once they had found a time slot for me. Left the hospital at 3:00AM.
• 7:30AM the same day stepping out of shower and the phone is ringing. Hospital had a cancellation and they wanted me there in a half hour (made it in 45 minutes - rush-hour). Had a full ultrasound and then a Paracentesis. This procedure involved a being on my back, a local, and then a catheter inserted by using the ultrasound to guide it. It was placed into mid abdomen as close to where my body met the bed as possible. The catheter hose was attached to a bottle under vacuum; I filled 7 bottles for a total of around nine liters of fluid (for those of you scoring at home, this is about 20 pounds.)

This post is already rather long and it’s about 1:35 AM for me. I’ll finish it off in the next few days.

Don’t worry it has a reasonably pleasant (so far) ending.

Gottalife

Glad to hear the ending is a bit more pleasant. That sort of news used to scare me into drinking, it seems it wasn't possible to scare me sober.

The thing about consequences, bad news, past experience and horror stories is they just don't come to mind when I am in that strange mental blank spot. They are easily overcome by the most trivial, flimsy excuse.

Here's hoping that your health improves, and you get some joy in your life.

paul99

I agree. I wouldn't "scare straight". I would sit in front of the computer, drinking, and look up all the things that drinking would do to my body. Pictures, videos, graphic and gory things...and nothing changed. I would worry, but I would worry more about if I had another bottle in my cache.

But wow, what you shared is frightening. I hope that things do get better, and that someone gets an idea of just how bad things do get when we put poison in our bodies.

Thank you

Pondlady

Very frightening. I'm hoping you're feeling better now , and good on your 109 days sober.

Dee74

good to see you again aziggen

glad the ending has been a reasonably pleasant one

D

Cigi

Hi I'm new here and not to be disgusting but did you ever experience white poo as a part of this?

I am glad to hear was a happy ending for you.

Thank you,

Cigi