paks

I drank nightly to ease my nerves so today/tonight I am ALL NERVES!

Having pretty intense waves of panic for the past 5 hours. First I thought I had poisoned myself because I cleaned my shower with Tilex and it made me dizzy. Then I got over that only to freak out at the noise in a parking garage. Now I'm losing it with fear that I'll get the DT's even though I'm fairly sure I never drank near enough for that.
I've had herbal tea and some b complex drops, but I just can't stop. Tell me this goes away???

Elisabeth888

It does go away, unfortunately it takes time.

Try googling some meditation videos and do some deep breathing. Take a hot bubble bath, drink some sleepy time tea.

Anything at all that makes you remotely relaxed.

Good luck! Mine was on its way out by day 6.

trikuza

My first week I was having panic attacks whenever i was trying to sleep. It took a few days to go away.

lilgolden73

On day 5 and the anxiety now before bed is awful luckily there is no alcohol here! I have to deep breathe until I fall asleep...it sucks I know!

trikuza

@lilgolden The deep breathing thing sucks. Normally breathing is an involuntary action, but instead we have to pay attention to every single breath until were so tired we pass out lol.

firestorm090

Welcome paks,

You sound totally normal to me. The first few days/weeks can send us on mind trips that we never imagined before. My dreams were the worst. Then I couldn't sleep till I was totally exhausted from staying up all night watching God knows what on the boob tube. Then I'd get totally wacked out of my mind angry for dropping a fork on the floor, go figure. Sometimes I'd get up, see the beautiful sunrise and think, hey, cut that out, go away, I feel like a cloudy day and that's what I expect.

Yep, you sound totally normal to me, lol.
Hang in there!

MythOfSisyphus

I also had some mild anxiety verging on panic at bedtime the first few days. It soon went away. Melatonin and L-Tryptophan are both really good herbal supplements that mello you out and relax you.

misskris

Yep panic attacks and crazy vivid nightmares were my experience too! haha what I found works best is really try to tire yourself out in the day do lots of exercise because it will help you to pass out and also the exercise will help restore your brain chemistry. Your dopamine is running really low right now because its used to getting huge dumps of it while drinking and now its all depleted. and AVOID CAFFEINE this makes panic attacks a million times worse, so no Excedrin migraine or anything... Drink lots of water to flush your system and take a multivitamin those things all helped me. Once you get past id say a 2 week hump then your good to go! :-) just takes time thou, weve all been there XOXO

Dee74

How are you doing now Paks?

Deep breathing usually does work for me

I'd run any supplement ideas past your Dr. too.
Not all supplements may be suitable for all of us

D

DisplacedGRITS

i had great anxiety and feelings of impending Doom in my early recovery. you are not alone! as awful as this is, it is normal and you will get better! but you will only get better if you don't drink. there's lots of good advice here. take some deep breaths and remember that this is something so many of us have been through as well so please don't feel alone.

paks

Thanks all! Finally got to sleep last night and had a crazy dream about drinking tons of bourbon in really inappropriate situations. Now I'm up super early and getting ready to go for a run, so hopefully that will help.
I know my drinking has been a type of self medicating for over 20 years so I shouldn't be surprised to see there are some issues I was masking...but I'm pretty nervous about having to face stuff.
I think you all have a lot of courage!