Withnail

Hello everyone. I've just turned 25 years old. I have been enjoying drinking for many years now. After a drinking session two days ago I woke up in the afternoon shaking and drenched in sweat, feeling very confused, and I started seeing figures emanating from the walls and hallway, which moved towards me and backed off intermittently, until I passed out again. I often wake up sweating and shaking, but this is the first time I have seen such figures.

I took a two day break after that, but resumed drinking today after the break merely made me feel ill (unable to eat, tired, terribly weak). Only now am I considering that too much boozing may be responsible for these maladies. Do you think that is the case? And if so, what steps should I take?

Thank you.

Dee74

Hallucinations are never good news...but I think there's an excellent chance that alcohol has played a part here.

Forgive me for being blunt but something like that would scare most people off booze, if not forever, certainly for a long time...You stopped for two days.

Have you ever seriously considered not drinking?

D

instant

you sound very ill and I advise a medical check up. I would imagine all your problems could be alcohol related- but if so these are indications that your body and mind can't take what you are dishing out

hope you can work a way out of this

Sulu1

I'd advise going to a doctor

Sweating, hallucinating etc can be signs of serious alcohol withdrawal. If you intend to quit you may well need some medical supervision.

P.s I love your username, assuming it relates to Withnail & I, absolute cult film.

IOAA2

"what steps should I take?


I’d suggest as stated above ASAP. This situation is nothing to mess with and can be very serious if not attended to.

BE WELL

Change4good

Some people find immediate relief by going to the ER, or a doctor, being VERY clear and honest about what they are experiencing, and then detoxed safely.

I imagine what you went through was terrifying? You can make it stop.

GreenColor

I just turned 28 and have experienced something similar twice.

john44

I started having the shaking and sweating a couple years before full-blown alcoholism. When I hit that point there was no such thing as a 2 day break without hospitalization. Please don't let it get to that point.

RecklessEric

I was around 25 when things started to head south for me.
But it took a long time to realise that booze was the problem.

A two day break after such an episode is pretty short.
Why not take a few weeks off and see how you handle it?
You might have a better idea of what you're dealing with then.

2muchpain

I had the exact same thing happen to me three months ago. It's a very scary thing to go through. Luckily, someone arranged for me to go into a detox center. I don't know what I would of done or what would of happened to me if she didn't intervene. I haven't drank since, and have had no hallucinations since, so it was definitely the alcohol that was causing it, but I remember those hallucinations like it was yesterday.
I strongly recommend going to an ER or a detox center if you can. I'm not sure how much worse things would of gotten if I didn't go into the detox center, and I don't want to know. Please get help immediately. John

MattM316

I only used to really hallucinate during the night when I was in bed. It got so bad that every time I laid down and shut my eyes, my mind would race and i'd jerk straight back up and see things that weren't there.

Definitely see a doctor on this one if it's alcohol related, as hallucinations means it can get serious very quickly.

Withnail

Yep, it's one of my favourite films. And I thought the username to be very apt, sadly.

Yeah, this is what I feared. I don't consider myself to be alcoholic. I don't have a physical dependence; it's more psychological for me. When I start to drink, I can't stop at all. The very idea of a quick pint in the pub with a friend is impossible for me; I'd go for the pint, but even after my friend goes to bed I'll just get a bottle of whisky in and drink in bed until I fall asleep.

Though, as stated, I don't consider myself to be an alcoholic with physical dependence, I'm well aware that in a few years time, if I keep this up, I will be at that stage. My record, for the past three years or so, has been 10 days without alcohol, and even now I could probably abstain for about a week without issue, as long as I have other things to keep me busy. But after that time has elapsed, I feel restless and start drinking again.

And there lies the crux of the issue. I drink because I want to, and because I enjoy it; though I know if I continue I'll end up drinking because I need to. I see a psychiatrist for depression and other problems, and after telling him my drinking habits he was the first person to bring alcoholism up. Though I don't consider myself as alcoholic, his concerns, as well as my recent experiences, are what brought me to this forum.

I suppose I'm just pathetically blogging at this point. The well meaning and kind posts that advised me to detox, or just quit, are abhorrent to me. For the simple fact that the only real (rather, superficial, but it's more real than anything else) joy that I get out of life is drinking. I would rather die than stop, but now that I've reflected on this, reflected on my outlook, I know that it's not right, it makes no sense, and that it's leading me down a dark path. But I don't know what else to do, and so I drink.

Thank you for reading, and thanks for your responses.

Dee74

The great lie of addiction is that the only joy available to us is a bottle.

If that were true this site would be filled with joyless unhappy people - and that's just not so

will you be ecstatic the first couple of weeks?? - probably not...

I think we underestimate the damage we do to ourselves by drinking...it will take a little time for things to repair and return to balance...but I promise you -you will feel joy again (real joy, not just a chemical approximation) if you stick with this.

I had no other tool to deal with life but drinking...then I found other tools that worked for me.

You need to start looking for the other tools that will work for you withnail.
Read around, see what others are doing...get some ideas and try some things out.

What have you got to lose?

D

MattyBoy

If you'd had that experience with any other drug - cannabis/mdma/mushrooms etc. I'd bet you'd never go near it again. Why make an exception just because it's alcohol?? Seriously?

RecklessEric

Withnail, what you're feeling is something most of us have felt, probably in differing degrees. The question "what will I do without it?".
And it is hard.
It involves making changes in your life.
But if you're seeing someone about depression, your life is obviously not ideal anyway.
I have found a great life.
Much better than the life of slavery I had at the hands of alcohol. And my mental health has improved beyond what I could have hoped.
I wish you well.

ScottFromWI

The transition from drinking when you want to drinking when you NEED to can happen at any time. And it can happen very, very quickly. It happened to me, and once it does there is no going back, ever. It's harder to stop each time as well.

For me getting sober was all about not only accepting my alcoholism, but realizing that my life could actually be better without alcohol. And it is - every facet of my life is better.

Altoids

I just wanna thank you for posting your experience, withnail, and for all of the replies from our fellow SRers. Another reminder why I NEVER wanna go back to alcohol. What Dee said is right. . . this side of alcoholism is SO.MUCH.BETTER. When that AV tries to tell me that "it won't be bad THIS time," I log onto SR and see so much evidence to the contrary. . . like this post. It will always be worse.

Please go to a doctor and get the information you need to live a life of wellness and freedom from alcohol's grip.

I hope you choose to join us. Seriously, you won't EVER regret not drinking.

biminiblue

Withnail, your post took me right back to that terrifying life when I was drinking. The depression, the shaking, the sweating, the anxiety, the hallucinating, the thoughts that next step was under the bridge.

I am so thankful to have found my way out of that. Calling myself an alcoholic was the least of my worries, but the key to making changes. I don't identify that way to anyone other than other alcoholics - it is just not necessary to "out" myself to the world. No one here wants/wanted to be that one in ten person who can't stop when they start, who thinks alcohol is all there is to joy. But we all found that to be the case.

Withnail

Because it allows to me to leave the house and talk to people without appearing a wreck. Alcohol is simply the most available and easy to get.

Last week I took a three hour train journey. I got a bottle of whisky in and a paper cup. During the journey various people sat in my carriage, and I had pleasant conversation with them all - talking about everything from literature to politics. Without whisky, I would have sat shaking and stared at the floor, praying to God that no one would speak to me.

The difference is astronomical. I don't know what to replace it with.

Dee74

Unfortunately that's not a tenable long term strategy.

if you keep drinking you'll find, at some point, that alcohol no longer 'works'. Believe me that is the most lonely place in the universe.

Many millions of people manage all kinds of anxiety conditions without alcohol.

My anxiety has been a life long problem. It's the best it's ever been in my entire life, now.

I put that down to a lot of hard work, some counselling, and not self medicating anymore.

D