alphaomega

Two years ago, had I drank (drunk ?) the current 2 bottles of Chardonnay, I would have woke up puking and everything else that comes along with hangovers (I'll spare you).

Last time I drank that amount, there weren't any signs of the above. The inexplicably crippling anxiety that renders me all but useless for the day after if not two days after, heart palpitations that I can't quite articulate the horror about, and the impending feeling of doom.

I understand tolerance (I think) but I'm just curious what others experiences were with the demonically inspired hangovers.

Thanks in advance as I'm a total information junkie.

It helps me stay on the straight and narrow.

socallednormal

Well, two years ago you'd feel sick from the dehydration, and the puking, and the dehydration from puking.

Now you don't puke anymore but you're experiencing withdrawals.

Isaiah

Yep. Sounds like a progression from hangover to withdrawal.

Hangovers are basically the dehydration, alcohol and the chemicals metabolized by alcohol wrecking havoc on your body.

Withdrawal is when your body becomes so adapted to having alcohol present that without it your brain chemistry no longer functions as it ought to. It stops responding to the chemicals your body produces naturally because it's switched over to alcohol. Kind of like an immune reaction almost, your body itself causes you to be sick.

Withdrawal effects do eventually right themselves out over time if caught early on and drinking ceases (they say it can take up to two years to fully recover.) If it goes on for too long though some damage can wind up being permanent.

Serious stuff not to mess around with.

alphaomega

SOcalled and Isaiah, THANK YOU ! You guys are right. This is exactly what has occurred.

I almost can't even wrap my head around how addicted I am.

This place might just help save my life.

Thank you Thank you Thank you. To everyone that takes the time to help me fully grasp the seriousness of this addiction.

When you know better, you do better.

Blessings.

EndGameNYC

Though I'm certain I've read some of your earlier comments, I don't recall how much and how often you drink. Knowing these things would help to understand what you've described here.

Alcohol is absorbed by the blood stream after entering the stomach. It then travels throughout the body. Alcohol is toxic to our biology and physiology, and is therefore metabolized in the liver, which removes harmful toxins while also removing it from the bloodstream. The liver protects our other internal organs from the toxins we introduce to our system.

Our livers have a limited capacity to metabolize alcohol, so it's not always processed the first time it goes through the liver, particularly with moderate-to-heavy drinking. In such a case, the toxins are expelled through our sweat glands and through our respiratory system, which is only one reason why it's so difficult to conceal our drinking. For some of the alcohol that is not expelled in these ways, the liver-to-bloodstream-to-liver cycle will repeat until it is thoroughly metabolized. This limitation on how much and how frequently the liver can metabolize alcohol results in increasingly more toxins accumulating in our internal organs.

The toxic waste products are then sent to our kidneys for further purification, much like the filter on a cigarette. From there, the metabolic waste and remaining toxins are expelled via the bladder.

The more one drinks, the more taxing this is on the both the liver and kidneys and, by extension, all other internal organs. Repeated use causes scarring of the liver which, in turn, throttles blood flow to the liver.

Though our livers can repair the repeated and accumulated damage we do from heavy and/or continuous drinking, each time we relapse, the scarring process occurs much more quickly until the liver is no longer salvageable, often in conjunction with other internal organs.

It's possible -- and this is true of most heavy drinkers -- that you're not metabolizing alcohol as efficiently as you once were, and that the more immediate expulsion of alcohol toxins is happening via your sweat glands and respiratory system accounts, at least in part, from what you describe.

alphaomega

Thank you End Game.

For the last year and a half, my typical week would include, between 1 1/2 to 2 bottles of wine in a night, perhaps 2-5 times a week. Never in the morning, and never all day. I would get so physically sick, but now it feels so different. As explained above in regards to dehydration to withdrawals.

I am 4 days today, again, without drink. My last drink was Saturday evening. Woke up Sunday mildly ill, but with the anxiety that forces me to not leave my house. IF I leave, all hell breaks loose. Too much stimulation. Can't cope with noise, heat, movement, lines, people, etc...

EndGameNYC

You're very welcome. Sometimes knowledge is power, and sometimes knowledge is useless. And sometimes it's support.

Happy to hear about your four days.

Alcohol truly wreaks havoc on our internal organs and on our physiology generally. This can result in frequent but brief changes in our withdrawal symptoms, or what we lovingly refer to as "hangovers." The whole liver-kidneys-pancreas-bloodstream loop, an extremely efficient set of processes, turns into a very dark and ominous circus.

What's heartbreaking to me is that despite the fact that so many of us are acutely aware that we're first slowly and then very quickly killing ourselves, few of us are able to stop on our own. Or to stop at all. My hope is always that people are able to stop before things get too far out of control. Sadly, this is too often not the case.

silentrun

Thank you to the people who posted on this. It changed up on me like that. I never understood why.

Brian316

Thank you all for this thread. I went from the hangover to withdrawal phase midway or so thru my drinking career and actually ended up hospitalized twice they got so bad. As mentioned in other threads, I have relapsed numerous times in the past and its weird, I will at first get hungover (which when I was an everyday drunk I either didn't get or just got used to) but if the relapse lasts more than a couple days, I get the withdrawal symptoms as described above. Alcoholism really is a progressive illness.