Luckylady76

I am new to the site, and being sober. Yesterday was two weeks. I never meant to quit, it just kinda happened. I have been a daily drinker for around 11 years. I attempted to quit last year, and that lasted 11 days. My choice drink is beer. I am a female, 40 years old. I had worked my way down to 4 during the week and as many as I wanted on the weekends. Last year when I quit for 11 days, I swore off beer since I believed that was the reason for my daily drinking haha! I decided to have a couple of glasses of whiskey per week instead. Atleast it wasn't everyday, right? Wrong lol. That became a daily issue too. I decided to go back to only beer. Drank around 8-10 beers daily all summer and then went down to only 4 during the week. That last about 4 weeks. Day before I quit, I drank my usual 9 beers (it was a Friday) and went to bed. Next morning woke up feeling very awful. Went to doc, blood pressure was extremely high. She said it was a panic attack. Gave me klonodine in her office and prescription for xanex. For about 3 days, I felt worse (honestly thought I might die!) but had precription for xanex. Took those and slept. Day 4, I started looking up why this was happening and discovered all of it was due to alcohol withdrawals! Still didn't want to believe it. Anyway, here I am 2 weeks later and I still have moments of extreme anxiety (like go home and lay down) and stomach upset, headache, etc. although not nearly as bad. I do not take xanex anymore (it's been a week) because I do not want to get addicted to that either. Anyone else still have withdraw symptoms 2 weeks later? Just wondering if this is normal?

Ghostlight1

Hello and welcome and congratulations on your decision to quit.
Two weeks is a great start.
I think I had anxiety for awhile after I quit. I was put on anti anxiety meds, too.
I do remember the terrible anxiety and fear I suffered after I quit.
It's been over six years for me, so I don't remember how long this lasted.

I was like you, drinking beer. I decided to try vodka since it had to be the beer that was causing me anxiety. Wrong! Like you I was soon drinking it every day.
Funny how we think that way.

I can tell you, for me, things did get better the longer I stayed sober.
I wish the same for you. Stick around here, you'll find a lot of support.
Best to you.

MeSoSober

Hey Luckylady -- you're lucky to have found such an awesome source of support, and WE'RE lucky to have you!

You will find so much shared experience and insight and wisdom. Glad you're here!

PeacefulWater12

Welcome. Well done on two weeks. I also played around with different drinks.

My chronic withdrawal symptoms lasted about 5 days. Felt like the flu.

FreeOwl

welcome!! Sobriety rocks.

I dealt with all sorts of weirdness and ups and downs and challenges for about the first year.

Some days were better than others.

But all in all, it's been the best years of my life. (Almost 4 years sober now).

Dee74

Hi LuckyLady

Its not uncommn for drinkers who drank big and for a kliogn time to experience anxiety when they quit, and it's often a problem for a little while. How long it might be varies from person to person and depends a lot of whether you were an anxious person before you started drinking.

D

Hevyn

Glad to meet you, Luckylady. I'm so glad you've decided to make this big change in your life.

I went through several stages with my withdrawal - I was mostly ok after 2 wks. Maybe you could check with your doctor just to be safe? Welcome!

BigFish

Same here, went through several stages. Initial withdrawal was mostly gone by two weeks, but it took about 6 months to fully recover physically (psoriasis, pain in organs, acne, all eventually went away). The hardest thing to overcome though, was the depression. It took almost two years for the depression to go away. And I didn't even know I was depressed until I could look back in the mirror with sober eyes.

Berrybean

Hi - and welcome.

Yes, I started feeling more anxious as my first month wore on. Although anxiety manifests itself in physical ways, it's not a physical reaction to withdrawal in the sense of DT's at the like.

I don't blame you for being concerned about the risk of cross addiction. However, I suspect that you are going to need to do something other than just wait, because just waiting didn't do much for me.

Short term I benefitted from calming breathing techniques and some simple strategies for getting back to the here and now and not letting my washing-machine head go racing all over the past and the future, and every possible thing I already screwed up, and every possible thing that I might still screw up. I needed to learn to stop, breath, and just think about what I could see, hear, smell,taste, etc. RIGHT now. Just focus on the job at hand - even if that was just drinking my cup of tea.

Longer term I needed to learn new ways of dealing with life on life's terms. In sobriety things still go wrong. People can still be annoying and irrational, or unfair. We and our loved ones still get sick. Our pets still die. In the past I'd have dealt with every single one of those problems with alcohol. So I needed to learn new and better ways of coping. For me, this has been something I have learned (and continue to learn) by working the 12-step program of recovery with a sponsor through AA. What struck me when I first saw those 12-steps was that alcohol is only even mentioned in step 1. The rest of the steps are about learning to live comfortably and sustainably sober. This in itself told me - I'm not the first person who didn't just feel better once alcohol had been removed. I still had work to do.

Of course, not everyone goes to AA. There are different ways to work on your recovery. It is definitely worth reading through Dee's thread about making a plan and considering what you can add into your sober living to make it sustainable and relieve yourself of this anxiety and stress without resorting to booze. https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...y-plans-1.html (Psst...wanna know why I'm always recommending recovery plans?)

Anyway. Again, welcome to Soberrecovery. Please stick around and keep reading and posting. I wish you all the best for your sobriety, AND for you recovery.

BB