Drinking to fend of withdrawals
 

What is the experience on this? I am told a heroin addict will be driven to use again because of the pain of withdrawal.

Is it the same for alcoholics? Did you drink to stave off withdrawal? Where you chemically compelled to drink?

Hi Mike,

Withdrawals are different for everyone. I did not taper my drinking, I just stopped. It is always a good idea to see your doctor to talk about your concerns.

Glad you are here!

Yes, especially during the last year and a half or so of my drinking, withdrawals became particularly frightening. It felt like I was suffocating. And it was continuous, there was no break in the agony. Shaking, sweating, and nausea were the least of the problems. Crazy high blood pressure and heart rate, visual disturbances, and an overall feeling of panic and desperation made it increasingly dangerous to stop on my own. So, indeed I was no longer drinking because I wanted to, but because I felt I had to.

Definitely see a doctor. W/D's can be dangerous. I had seizures.

I became an all day drinker the last couple of years before I got sober. One of the main reasons was that I had reached the point that I would wake up in withdrawals, and at times the withdrawals would actually wake me up. I generally felt the need to take a drink within an hour or two of waking up, not to get drunk but to quiet the symptoms of withdrawals. Towards the end I seemed to trapped in a perpetual "phenomenon of craving" state.

I actually did this before I was fully aware of the extent of my alcoholism, years before I got sober. I was a daily drinker back then but not around the clock, mostly after work and on weekends. By the time I got home from work, I often felt pretty weird, not fully conscious that it was caused by alcohol withdrawal but I learned that drinking alleviated it. So I would often pour a drink as soon as I entered my home, even before having a moment to sit down.

Later on in my drinking career, I wasn't drinking everyday, mostly because I could not due to the quantities I would polish off in one round of drinking and probably because my body no longer tolerated it too well. Instead, I would binge-drink awful amounts 1-2-3 times a week (sometimes being drunk constantly for 1-2 days) and then stop for the same number of days and not have a drop. At that time I was fully aware of what I was doing and why I was so sick but, sadly, got used to the constant state of withdrawals between binges. So I just suffered through them for a while, rinse, repeat. I also quit cold turkey both times when I got sober for long-term. I had many awful and scary withdrawals and doing it this way was definitely not a good decision. I think I tried to taper a couple times but always failed it. I also never could have just one drink in the morning after a binge night to "feel better", if I took one I would end up just continuing the bender. I was very definitely chemically and every other ways dependent on alcohol.

Yep, it's quite common. Some call it "maintenance drinking" too and I've been there.

I'd say my withdrawal symptoms were very mild compared to what I read about those of others here on SR, incredibly mild. Mostly just generally feeling lousy, maybe a little shaky hands but that's it. I quit on my own without any detox help, naively as I know now.

Big "enemy" of any kind of tapering or maintenance here. I went cold turkey (from about a handle of vodka every two days habit by the end) - you can see my story on plenty of other threads.

This was the only solution for me. Do see a dr, as I know this is not considered a good idea by many; the only medical "assistance" I had was starting an as-needed rx for ativan. Interestingly, to me, I use it more now (still within rx guidelines) at 9+ months than I did at the beginning. I experienced pretty severe PAWS after the immediate withdrawal - my choice was made because I considered an unknown degree and length of whatever quitting meant was better than a known death by drinking.

Perhaps more important than the mental aspect of tapering (you really haven't quit) is the mental and emotional (you can quit....at some point when you have "tapered enough."). You may also want to read up on kindling.

Good luck.

Yes. At the end I was so so sick. I was hallucinating and shivering and sweating and vomiting so much I tore up my esophagus. I was so anxious...I was petrified and crying and shaking. The first few drinks would come back up and finally I could keep one down...Once I got a sufficient level of alcohol into me I felt okay again. But the withdrawals were HORRIBLE. Alcohol withdrawal can kill. People withdrawing from heroin feel like they are going to die...alcoholics withdrawing from alcohol can and DO actually die from it. It is no joke.

At times I drank the next morning just to ease the awfulness of the withdrawals. But that would inevitably just prolong my binge, and I would eventually have to face that withdrawal at some point. I'm thankful that it didn't turn dangerous for me.

For the last half a decade of my 20 plus year addiction to alcohol, I drank every morning, as a direct consequence of the withdrawals from the day before. I felt really ill, shaking, wobbly and anxious etc., but once I'd taken a couple of drinks, I felt more normal and the withdrawals abated.

Each evening I'd swear I wouldn't drink the next day, or at least just drink half the usual amount and then planned that the following few days I'd drink less and taper off.....I've got yearly diaries full of handwritten tapering schedules. Such a waste of life.

But each morning I'd drink again because of the withdrawals. It was a relentless circle that I was trapped in. Until I discovered a technique to stop drinking, which I believed would work. Then, with that hope of success, I managed to almost complete a taper schedule and by incrementally decreasing the daily amounts drank for over a week, I was able to stop, thankfully, safely.

The difference between prior daily drinking and failure to taper and finally managing to taper; was the hope I held that AVRT and my BP would be effective. Thank the God of my understanding, it worked.

Thanks for all the replies. I am just trying to get a picture of the withdrawal process. When I was in locked up in the nut farm they put me on Ativan for a day or two and I didn't know the reason at the time. It was horrible stuff and I refused to take it when I realized what it was doing .

While there we had, over the course of ten weeks, only one man come in for medical detox who went through the dts. It lasted about two days round the clock screaming and seizures. The rest of us didn't go through anything like that.

Today, the provision of beds for medical detox in the public hospital system is based on their estimate that one percent of alcoholics will require medical detox. That mean five beds in the capital city, and these beds are often empty.

I never had any control when I drank. I always wanted to be a plateau drinker but could never manage it. Instead it was usually 3-4 day binges which stopped when I was too sick to drink. My stomach was wrecked, I couldn't get food down, I had raw skin, sweats, shakes, the limp that someone reminded me of the other day, and I felt awful, full of fear and guilt. At the time I thought these were just horrible hangovers, but I suppose they must have been withdrawals.

Strangely I just suffered through. I couldn't drink to alleviate the symptoms. I had heard and heard of others doing that but I just couldn't face a drink. I tried it once or twice, just to try and feel better but it never had that effect. It made me feel worse so I just suffered through.

I can vividly remember trying to drink my first beer of the day and vomiting it right back up on days when I was unusually hungover/having bad withdrawals. I'd usually do it outside near the woods so no one noticed. I remember gagging when I lifted the can to my mouth just from the smell but knowing that I had to drink it. It would sometimes take one or two but eventually i'd get one to stay down.

On the subject, it's also worth noting that the severity of withdrawals can increase over time. For example, I quit cold turkey a couple of times and stayed sober for a month once, and even a couple months. But the last time I quit I ended up in the ER with symptoms I had never had before.

Thank you for the thread Gottalife & both your posts Scott

That was me, usually with vodka but instead of being outside, I'd lock the door to the bathroom and grip the sink so hard my hands would ache later. I absolutely hate throwing up so I would fight it with all my strength. Usually after a couple really intense waves of nausea would subside, I would manage to get enough down to feel like I could "manage." This was a daily routine, often multiple times/day, with some worse than others. Just not drinking was no longer an alternative, not without some help.

I was the same when I was at my worst. I was a once a day drinker for years, and the last thing on my mind in the morning was drinking from feeling like crap the night before, but then I found if I got past the nastiness of the first couple of drinks in the morning, I could go right back to feeling "good", which was the beginning of hell.
I would go on 3-5 day non-stop benders and stop only because I was so nauseated I couldn't drink any more, or I simply ran out. This lead to withdrawals from hell to the point of hallucinating, scratching myself until I was bleeding as I thought there were bugs under my skin, sleeping under the couch,..those were not fun times.

Mike,

Hows things?

Drops

Things couldn't be much better drops. Just got back to NZ with my new Thai partner and she loves the place. I've been having a lot of fun showing her around. In January we head back to Malaysia to complete work on the boat before sailing to eastern Thailand. I have a pretty good life by the grace of God.

The thread is about me trying to reconcile all the discussion about withdrawals here, with my own experience. I get the feeling I must have had a lot of withdrawal symptoms that I just accepted as hangovers.

That all rings bells F12. One time I distinctly remember accidentally sobering up in the middle of a binge. We had be on some waste ground tearing around in a car and I was laughing so much I forgot to keep drinking. Before I knew it the hangover from hell set in. I couldn't get started again. Next day those friends banned me from their life.