SubPop

So the last couple of weeks I have been slowly but surely reducing the amount of alcohol I consume due to fears of withdrawal. I used to think I was going through withdrawal, but it turned out to just be one massive hypochonriacal anxiety episode. So, having realized that, I started to drink more thinking that since it wasn't withdrawal, why not "go harder" while I still could. Perhaps one of those episodes is starting again, but regardless, I am getting older (24) and am obtaining more responsibility so withdrawal or not, I need to cut down if not stop all together. If alcohol is anything like cigarettes, then baby steps are the way to go.

So, having cut down, I have this feeling of enhanced lucidity. It is as if a haze has been lifted and my eyes have been squeegeed. Everything looks more real now. I also feel calmer and my thoughts and actions are more controlled. I feel sort of melancholic, but other than that, I feel no better or worse. In fact, I feel a sort of relief, like after a long run.

I have heard that withdrawal can make people feel very lucid, but this doesn't feel threatening, and I have no other symptoms. Could this be the start of withdrawal?

I have also heard that since drugs dull your senses, you regain lucidity, but in the wake of being sedated or what have you, this rebound feels overly lucid as the user is not used to such clear mindedness. So is this progress?

Thoughts?

Dee74

Hi SubPop

I've never experienced anything like that - to be honest, my lucidity came several weeks after stopping all together.

what have you cut back to now?

D

SubPop

Well, while I do have a problem and consider myself an alcoholic, I have not consumed as much for as long as most in my wagon. I've only been drinking heavily for a little over a year. 2 a night M-F, 6-8 on Saturdays and Sundays. Sober days here and there.

I can't be certain, but for the first week of January I had some 6-8 a day. Don't remember how much on the weekends - probably around 12. I know for certain on the 18th and 19th I had 12 and 17, then 8 on Monday, 4 T -F after that, and 2 a day since then which brings us to today. Also, I stopped smoking **** at the beginning of January out of inability to find some. So that would account for the compensatory drinking and possibly the haze being lifted, it being an everyday thing for years and the haze pretty much being a main effect.

Something like that. I've drank more this month than any month ever.

Perhaps I am finally just getting some rest? Other than the melancholy, and the unsettling but so far benign and at time enjoyably enhanced lucidity, I feel physically better than I have all month.

SubPop

To clarify - perhaps entering an alcohol induced haze covered the effects of coming OUT of a haze from the other stuff, and now that I am calming down, I am seeing the benefits of not being in a double whammy haze by way of this lucidity?

Turninganewleaf

I don't believe "baby steps" works well with stopping alcohol. My experience quiting smoking was nothing like quiting alcohol. Cigarettes I manged to stop fairly easily from a half a pack a day to nothing. Alcohol and narcotics I have struggled with for 10+ years. Cigarettes will kill you very slowly. My alcohol and drug addiction was killing me quickly. I knew I was killing myself drinking a bottle of vodka and wanted to quit yet still found myself at the liquor store at 9AM.

SubPop

Well the idea of "kindling" from going cold-turkey and not tapering scares me, yet I also think that if I am not actually going through withdrawal, "tapering" might help contribute to the problem and make things worse. Now I am thinking I have PAWS...and while the withdrawals may be less intense than otherwise, I'm now more scared of DTs coming out of nowhere. I think I would rather not have PAWs and get the withdrawal over and done with so as to eliminate the probability of DTs and seizures.

I honestly just want to go to bed.

If one is too tired to drink, that should be a good sign, correct?

-----

On a different but similar note, call it A#, I found a crucial piece of info today about my anxiety problems. I took my blood pressure and pulse today because I read that withdrawal raises it and I was also worried about my tobacco smoking and coffee consumption. The machine said 114 over 65 with a heart rate of 74 bpms. Normally, that would be a fantastic reading, but with my vices considered, I now fear I have low blood pressure and the drugs are raising it to ideal levels. Go figure.

Dee74

Yeah you got me on this one SP.
Like I said, any lucidity I had came after I stopped drinking, not during...

D