Sensitive to alcohol now, kindling?
 

Hi all just looking for any insight on kindling and binge drinking. From what I've read kindling is the phenomenon that occurs after repeated withdrawals from sedatives/alcohol that causes increasingly severe symptoms. Seems to be from progressively worse glutamate rebound after drug working on GABA wears off.

I've been a regular binge drinker for nearly a decade and was addicted to klonopin for 2 years awhile back. Always reacted well to drinking even in large amounts(didn't drive,didn't blackout or get out of control). That said I would always drink too much usually binge for several hours and have a least 12 drinks. About 5 years in I did start to notice hangovers turning into more mental/withdrawal symptoms anxiety, shakiness, insomnia, night sweats.

Long story short I've realized my nervous system can't take anymore of those large amounts. However even after taking 2 months off this fall I've noticed that even after even small amounts (2 to 3 beers) I still get severe anxiety, confusion hot flashes and night sweats the night after moderate drinking.

I'm more than ready to cut ties with getting drunk but it would be nice to have a few beers now and then but it feels like I'm having a withdrawal after I do.

Just looking for any advice/feedback thanks.

Nice to meet you BigleBowski

Here is a link on kindling

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...lly-again.html

Hi soberwolf,
Uhhhhhhh I know I've searched high and low for a cure/reversal of the kindling phenomenon. Wish I was smarter about it earlier. Thanks for the info tho. A positive is it's made drinking so miserable it's easier to quit

Yep, it only gets worse too unfortunately. It's also 100 percent preventable though...and there's plenty of support and help here if you decided that quitting will be your goal!

Soberwolf
Thank you for that old thread......you are just what this forum needs! :You_Rock_

In my binge drinking experience, the withdrawals only get worse... Even after about a year sober, when I relapsed for 4 days... Still had horrible withdrawals. I've kind of accepted that I won't ever be able to go back to how things used to be when I drank. Took some time, but it's finally beaten into me.

Welcome BigLebowski :)

That happened to me too - it was a one way street steadily getting worse. Quitting drinking stopped it tho :)

D

I was also a binger. The last time I drank I had a fairly modest amount (3-4 beers) and the withdrawal symptoms resulting from it were the worst I'd ever had.

Clearly I'm not able to go back to 'normal' drinking, not that I know what THAT looks like.

Also happened to me, even after taking nearly two years off from drinking.

Stopping for good has been the cure.
Once I accepted it, life really got better.

It's like finally stepping out of the prison door, which was open all the time :)

It was Dee74 who showed me the link & probably someone showed him it

That's what I love about recovery we share what we know & can

Glad you've decided to stay SR is a great site, see you on the forum friend

Kindling is a MFer. Pretty sure it's what I'm experiencing after 4 years of sobriety that turned into a few months long binge session with days of drying out and days of getting stupid.

Thanks for the responses. Yea kindling really sucks. It'd be nice if it was more well known since binge drinking is so common/acceptable. People seem to only focus on the fact that it's bad for your liver

It is probably not as well known in binge drinking circles as it really only affects alcoholics. There are plenty of binge drinkers that will certainly experience hangovers, but kindling seems to only be associated with those who have true physical addiction. Certainly binge drinkers can become addicted, and many do.

And as most addicts know, the negative consequences of their drinking, or even the possible ones, are not always an effective deterrent.

Here's a good link from the NIH on Kindling:

https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publicati...22-1/25-34.pdf

Thanks to "Nuke" in another thread...

When I initially quit drinking, I tried to go back to "occasional drinking" because I didn't know I was an alcoholic. I can absolutely assure you that each withdrawal will be at least as bad or worse, and the only way to stop it is to stop drinking completely.

It's very possible it is kindling, or just age. I know as I got older, hangovers went from just a minor annoyance, to feeling like absolute garbage for days. I also use to be a once a day drinker for years, then that evolved to bender drinking for about 6 months, and that's where the real hell began with horrific withdrawals, I'm pretty sure I had DT's twice, hallucinations, freaking out,.. it was not a fun experience.

Kindling was almost certainly what happened to me. I was a ckssic binge drunker from the start. Always drank to drunkenness, never really every single day.

Hangovers evolved from a physical nuisance to full-on, jump out the window panic states. Instead of quitting (unthinkable!!) I started medicating the hangovers. Enter the benzos, opiates, morning drinking. This all added up to a very quick flame-out.

Kindling is certainly frightening. Sometimes I would be biting my pillow at three am following four beers.

In the end, though, it probably saved me. I would certainly have continued to an early grave if the symptoms were not so dramatic.