Alcohol Withdrawal and Kindling
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Alcohol Withdrawal and Kindling
Alcohol withdrawal and kindling
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3000183/
This is an interesting read (a little technical) for those who have experienced worsening alcohol withdrawal symptoms with each subsequent relapse.
This will be something I remember when I'm more than a week or two sober and feeling better physically.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3000183/
This is an interesting read (a little technical) for those who have experienced worsening alcohol withdrawal symptoms with each subsequent relapse.
This will be something I remember when I'm more than a week or two sober and feeling better physically.
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I never knew about kindling until after I got sober but unfortunately I had to experience it.
As it relates to my drinking, one of the worst experiences I had was the morning/afternoon after my last relapse. I had about 3 months of sobriety under my belt and thought I had it under control. In reality I wasn't working any program (just practicing abstinence) and wasn't 100% committed so a relapse was coming sooner or later.
I went out on a Saturday with the intention of just having a few cognacs to get that pleasant buzz. Instead I ended up getting absolutely destroyed and came out of consciousness sometime the next day. I was used to varying degrees of hangovers but the physical pain I felt was on another level. All I could do was lay there whimpering and begging God to end my suffering right then and there.
After that I started drinking round the clock. It takes me about 40 minutes to drive to work, I would take the side streets while taking swigs from a pint of whiskey. At that point I couldn't even wait until the evenings.
Bad times, just awful times.
As it relates to my drinking, one of the worst experiences I had was the morning/afternoon after my last relapse. I had about 3 months of sobriety under my belt and thought I had it under control. In reality I wasn't working any program (just practicing abstinence) and wasn't 100% committed so a relapse was coming sooner or later.
I went out on a Saturday with the intention of just having a few cognacs to get that pleasant buzz. Instead I ended up getting absolutely destroyed and came out of consciousness sometime the next day. I was used to varying degrees of hangovers but the physical pain I felt was on another level. All I could do was lay there whimpering and begging God to end my suffering right then and there.
After that I started drinking round the clock. It takes me about 40 minutes to drive to work, I would take the side streets while taking swigs from a pint of whiskey. At that point I couldn't even wait until the evenings.
Bad times, just awful times.
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Yep, it's very real. I was able to quit on my own many times and muscle through withdrawals with not much more than just feeling like crap for a while. But then everything changed completely out of the blue one time and I ended up getting taking to the ER ( right in the middle of a meeting ) by a co worker and ended up needing lots of needles and other things being stuck in me to stabilize my heart rate and blood pressure. I was anemic and chronically dehydrated too. This was 2 full days after I quit drinking too.
Problem is though, even that was not enough to stop me from drinking again. Using consequences as the sole motivator to stay sober rarely works because the consequences almost always go away eventually. I needed to make a major change in my life to accept that drinking any amount of alcohol is never OK, ever. And that being sober is better than drinking - which doesn't always seem possible at first but it's very true in almost every way.
Problem is though, even that was not enough to stop me from drinking again. Using consequences as the sole motivator to stay sober rarely works because the consequences almost always go away eventually. I needed to make a major change in my life to accept that drinking any amount of alcohol is never OK, ever. And that being sober is better than drinking - which doesn't always seem possible at first but it's very true in almost every way.
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Thank you for these articles. I have experienced this a few times and it does get worse every time. It's playing with death and the most terrifying thing I've every gone through.
You are right too Scott, the consequences aren't enough or we would only go through this once, it's so awful. And a sober life is definitely better, in every possible way. Of that I am now certain
You are right too Scott, the consequences aren't enough or we would only go through this once, it's so awful. And a sober life is definitely better, in every possible way. Of that I am now certain
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Yeah, consequences didn't deter me- drink driving conviction, marital trouble and so on.
Pain didn't deter me- I had pancreatitis three times and believe me, the pain is bad. But that didn't stop me.
But a better life, one without booze, deters me from drinking.
And it really is better.
Pain didn't deter me- I had pancreatitis three times and believe me, the pain is bad. But that didn't stop me.
But a better life, one without booze, deters me from drinking.
And it really is better.
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Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Atlanta
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It took the likelihood of death in short order to stop me.
It's good when something like this resonates (it didn't really teach me anything because I'd been thru it all and didn't need a word for it- learning about PAWS did however clarify a whole lot of what I was going thru when I quit). Whatever we LET reinforce our choices to stay sober is thumbs up in my book
It's good when something like this resonates (it didn't really teach me anything because I'd been thru it all and didn't need a word for it- learning about PAWS did however clarify a whole lot of what I was going thru when I quit). Whatever we LET reinforce our choices to stay sober is thumbs up in my book
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Originally Posted by RecklessEric 
Yeah, consequences didn't deter me- drink driving conviction, marital trouble and so on.
Pain didn't deter me- I had pancreatitis three times and believe me, the pain is bad. But that didn't stop me.
But a better life, one without booze, deters me from drinking.
And it really is better.
Pain didn't deter me- I had pancreatitis three times and believe me, the pain is bad. But that didn't stop me.
But a better life, one without booze, deters me from drinking.
And it really is better.
Because I think I've done that once or twice, but I'm not sure. I just know that withdrawal is hell and would probably kill me if I ever went through it again.
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Originally Posted by August252015
It took the likelihood of death in short order to stop me.
It's good when something like this resonates (it didn't really teach me anything because I'd been thru it all and didn't need a word for it- learning about PAWS did however clarify a whole lot of what I was going thru when I quit). Whatever we LET reinforce our choices to stay sober is thumbs up in my book
It's good when something like this resonates (it didn't really teach me anything because I'd been thru it all and didn't need a word for it- learning about PAWS did however clarify a whole lot of what I was going thru when I quit). Whatever we LET reinforce our choices to stay sober is thumbs up in my book
That's why I've written it down on my flash card for when that craving inevitably hits me out of nowhere.
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