oOCaptainCrazy

Okay so about 7 years ago up until 2 years ago, i would drink 3 liters of 7.5% alcohol cider every night without fail, if i could afford more I'd get it.

I did this practically every night for about 5 years, slowly getting worse when my mum died.

Anyway over the past 3 years I've started to date this Dutch girl and i went from drinking that heavily to drinking 4 beers a day, to only drinking a few times a week.

Now I've started to only drink on the weekends, maybe 12 beers in all spread over three days.

The problem is that i remember when i was younger i used to feel so connected to the world you know? I actually felt part of it but i think that years of alcohol drinking has kinda phased it out. Every day i feel hazy in the head like I'm here but I'm just not connecting. My girlfriend says that it's normal and that it's how everybody feels but i think it has something to do with the alcohol.

Does it get better over time? I've noticed that since i started this only drinking on weekends thing i get angry a lot easier and wake up with a headache maybe once or twice a week.

How long will it take for my brain to recover and for me to start to feel normal again? It's just like I look around the room and i see objects but, for me, it feels like the numbness of being drunk but without the dizziness you know? I can see everything but it's like my mind is not absorbing it, as i said it put it down to the years of alcohol abuse but i figured it would have gone away by now since i don't drink near as much as i did back then.

Thanks for your help!

IOAA2

Hi. and welcome.
For the vast majority of alcoholics we START to get better when we STOP drinking. We travel a bumpy road in early sobriety without drinking at all so trying to recover is next to impossible while drinking.
Try reading a lot of the posts on this site and attend AA meetings for some direction as it's very difficult doing it ourselves.

BE WELL

zjw

I dont know if it is the same as your expieriencing but for a good long time after i quit drinking things felt fake. I felt as if i was living in some sort of movie world things did not seem real a lot of times. Like i was watching a movie pass by that i was not connected too. I was very detatched.

I still pretty detatched and oddly prefer it this way but things dont seem so fake or like a movie set anymore. At times they do and i do enjoy it it doesnt scare me like it did.

theres actually a disorder for this i read about and it fits me perfectly. In my case I'm not worried i've grown used to it and accepting of it.

the anxiety and such gets better in time after you quit. But the minute you pickup you gotta start the game all over again how i understand it. which is why i'm terrified to pickup again.

oOCaptainCrazy

Yeh that's exactly how it feels.. "Fake"

It's kinda like when you were younger and you'd randomly get that feeling where you feel out of body, you can see everything around you but it's as though some part of you is in a different reality.

To be honest since i cut back i get times, especially as of late, where i feel "normal" again as though it's slowly coming back and i do feel happier.

kflee

When I start to drink again after I stop for a while alcohol always messes with my head. Once this started I realized I had more of a problem than I realized. I know that I will probably never be able to just have a drink or 3 on the weekends. I trained my body for so many years that alcohol was a part of my body and needed to keep my blood in motion. Now I have to deal with permanent damage and treat body with respect for rest of my life. It just does not feel the same anymore.

Pipping

I had felt disconnected from the world for the past 10 years, some periods were worse than others. The way I would describe it is like standing behind a glass window watching everyone go about their own lives, watching the world go by but not participating in my life.I had simmering rage and resentment, got irritated very quickly and became an expert at bottling things up. Alcohol made everything better or so it seemed, for ages and then very quickly it made everything worse. I now take antidepressants after gentle prompting for years by my GP. They never worked while I was drinking but now I am sober I feel like a different person. The anxiety and headaches are gone. I have stopped waking up in the morning feeling like crap and I would feel like crap regardless of whether or not I had been drinking. I know we cannot give medical advice but I really related to your post and definitely could have written it myself. Perhaps you could chat to a Dr? I wish you all the best.

sugarbear1

You aren't totally sober, so this will continue. Once totally sober, totally abstinent, things will begin to get really clear and stay more clear.

Climber122

Try not to worry too much about odd feelings. One mantra that helped me a lot in early sobriety was "feelings aren't facts." This helps a lot in realizing that though I may feel bad, odd, apart, distant...whatever it is, the feelings I have are just that - they are manufactured thoughts and sensations by my brain and do not determine what my next move is - ACTION is the key, what do I DO? I can't trust my feelings to guide me, because as an addict that system is broken. As an addict not in recovery, by default I want to feel good all the time - I don't want to face the trauma I have possibly endured, nor do I want to look at the pain of my personal shortcomings or failures. I'd rather be drunk and put off facing the reality till tomorrow, again and again. Sounds like a good plan until the drug begins to make me sick: when the "allergy" to alcohol kicks in and my body does start to fail.

Rest assured if you decide to seek sobriety your mind, body and spirit can and will recover, but it does take time - more than a few days or weeks. For most people the change is gradual - slowly feeling better, but not staking their recovery on those feelings. I didn't get sober to feel good all the time, I got sober to be free of alcohol addiction!

My advice would be to see a doctor and get a full check up if you can. If you have a clean bill of health it would be a good time to consider a different way of living. Maybe try sobriety for a while. You already know what drinking gets you, right? If you find you are unable to STAY STOPPED (after all, many of us can stop for a while and believe this means we don't have a problem), then consider dropping in on an AA meeting or seek group or individual counseling to find out if perhaps you may be alcoholic. Good luck!

karate

When we quit drinking we have to feel all the emotions of life .

Everyone else feels that too , we just hid from it in a bottle .

BSwan09

I can totally relate. This occurred to me around 5-7 weeks sober. Here in my 8th week I'm feeling pretty normal, but things appear to be "flat" every once and a while but it is getting better. However, the "flatness" is going away with the anxiety so it might be the anxiety causing it.

When you say you're drinking on the weekends, I'm guessing its more than just 1 or 2 drinks at dinner on a night out? I'm guessing continued drinking, even if it is much less than your "usual," will greatly prolong your recovery.

Mrmellow11

I'm still having anxiety a few months into sobriety but I was drinking everyday for 4 years without missing many days and if I missed a day I made up for it the next night but I am starting to feel better but I think you'll need to be totally abstinent from alcohol to feel better....look up post acute withdrawal syndrome