Forwards

Hello SR friends,

I'm reaching out for some help here. Following alcohol and alcohol withdrawal induced episodes of paranoid psychosis, I've ended up on powerful anti-psychotic medication (Xeplion / paliperidone) with a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

The medication has the effect of blocking dopamine, so alcohol no longer works for me in the traditional sense of giving me a high. I'm told these meds are so powerful they even block street drugs. However, I'm still an alcoholic... I drink from morning to night and lie to my doctors about it. My work (self employed) is suffering greatly as a result.

If I stop drinking, even for a single morning, I am a nervous wreck. I count the minutes until I'm next able to drink. I've been around the block here at SR a few times now but seem to be right back at step 1. I'm concerned that stopping drinking will make my work performance even worse in the short term as reported by others here. I simply cannot afford this now as I'm broke and on final notice.

Help please! Any suggestions?

Yours, Forwards

FLCamper

I think you need to be honest with your Drs. They cannot diagnose you properly if you are lying to them. I know it is hard to come clean, but your life could be at risk.

Soberwolf

Do you want to stop drinking ?

What are you going to do to help yourself stay stopped ?

Aellyce

Hi Forwards,

Would you be able to do a few days detox in a facility, supervised? This might be the safest way for you if you are not able to quit on your own and suffer significant withdrawal. It might also be that your meds would need to be re-adjusted to an alcohol-free state and this is best done in a professional way. Then discuss options for staying sober.

You know, it's quite possible that once you got and stayed sober, your psychotic symptoms would improve on their own, but there is no way of knowing without trying. I don't have schizophrenia but had many weird DSM-grade symptoms that did not meet any solid diagnosis as they were all over the map when I was drinking heavily, for years, off and on. Some quazi-psychotic states as well. It took a while for all that to go but eventually they were completely and stably gone, all of that weirdness. My suggestion is definitely to give sobriety a shot but most likely you would need to maintain for a while to see significant improvement.

northend79

Hey Forwards!

I also take an atypical antipsychotic....my diagnosis is Bipolar 1, but have dealth with psychosis on more than one occasion, so my dosage reflects that.

I know exactly what you mean when you speak of it having no effect. I've taken other drugs in the past where it would seemingly increase the effects of alcohol ( ie, black out drunk after 3 drinks ) but when I made a switch a couple of years ago, it was like hallelujah! I can drink my face off, and still act normal in social situations! Hangovers were much less brutal as well. My alcoholic mind thought this was pretty freaking awesome.

This was with the knowledge that you shouldn't be doing so...in the past I would just ride the merry go round of being on meds for a short time, then stop taking them in order to go back to drinking...it was a pleasant surprise when I stopped heeding the warnings and it didn't seem to cause any harm.

However, my experience was, after being on it for some time, where 9 times out of 10 I was walking and talking completely coherent after a drinking episode , I would have some where I would black out immediately, or where it didn't seem to have the same effect, and I would end up wasted as I should be.

Also, during binges, I would sometimes become ill, or not take my meds certain days, and all bets were were off anyhow.

There was no way to predict it, either.

I'm a nurse, and I watched a 25 year old man end up with irreversible brain damage after drinking on a similar type of drug....I live in a small city, and this was a gent I had seen around the bars few times. I also lost a friend about 15 years ago due to having a seizure and choking on her vomit due to something similar...but those are things you can file under " it won't happen to me" section of your brain and disregard.

While those situations were extreme, and not typical themselves....my experience has been, I had gotten myself into a righteous mess as I was essentially just keeping everything " somewhat level" and then when attempting to remove alcohol from the mix, I had to go through a whole med readjustment...and if you've done so before, you know all about it's own set of withdrawals, not knowing how it will affect you, the fear, symptons reappearing and so on....

I would talk to your doctor about this...if you haven't shared , they are under the impression your meds are affecting you without alcohol in your system and will adjust/ monitor accordingly.

I wouldn't be afraid of telling your doctor either...you will not be the first or the last...substance abuse seems to go hand in hand with mental illness, so it's something they deal with on regular occurences.

If you choose to a doctor supervised detox, it may vary slightly to the norm due to your medications you need for your mental health, another reason to talk to them about it.

I cannot tell you what a load taken off it was when I was finally honest with my doctor about the fact I was still drinking after having lied myself.

Good luck to you!

Gottalife

I didn't need any drugs for that to happen. It seems to be a part of chronic alcoholism when we are getting near the end of the road. I have heard countless alcoholics talk about the point where alcohol no longer seemed to work.