bevin

I've been thinking about this for the past couple hours - has anyone experienced delusions while drinking? I mean, beyond the 'people must be talking about me' thing - I'm talking schizophrenic type paranoid delusions. Before you ask, I have been to a couple mental health professionals who have tested me for all sorts of things, and they say I'm not schizophrenic.
Just curious whether these weird thoughts were caused by drinking or stress - or maybe both.

CarolD

My drinking finally got me a diagnoses of situational depression.

I don't know what you are asking...but during the final 5 years
I had all sorts of mental "weirdness"
that cleared up rather quickly after sobriety.

I was unaware of the correlation between alcohol and brain
chemistry way back then.
I just figured I had saturated my brain with too much for too long.

bevin

Um - OK - sorry for being so vague, but I'm embarrassed. How about this one: I had the idea that the noises on my roof were possibly aliens coming to abduct me and it terrified me to the point that it was almost impossible to sleep. I was drinking in the morning a lot back then.

CarolD

For awhile.......I saw the shower was spraying blood.
Only if my lover was in the room ..would it switch to water.

Voices outside my apartment door happened often ..
they wanted to come visit me... open door..no one was ever there.

Watching the leaves fall reminded me of dead souls seeking
a peaceful grave. I cried when they were burned.

All of that soon stopped appearing to me with sobriety

Presstoe

I have seen water running down the walls when I'm in bed or the ceiling fill with cracks. But as a child I used to see the room fill with silver webs, that was before drinking. I don't have a diagnosis of schizophrenia or anything. One therapist told me that stress can bring on that type of thing. Also once when I was a kid I thought my house was being robbed, I heard glass breaking and pots and pans crashing. I called my mom at work, who called the police- they came and absolutely nothing had happened. I was home alone, it was probably anxiety from being left alone, I was pretty young. Panic can cause that kind of thing, and if you're drinking a lot you could have anxiety problems.

Change4life

when I was a kid I though tkiller monkeys were outside my window , but that had nothing to do with alcohol at that time.
but... in the past year or so I have become very paranoid to the point that it makes me angry. i dont know if it is alcohol induced , but it has become a problem because I mis interpret what people are saying to me. And I am glad you brought up the people are talking about me . i thought it was just me

bevin

@Carol D - Blood in the shower sounds terrifying...I think I'd just stop bathing. With me, it was mainly hearing/thinking things - though I have seen things once or twice.

@Presstoe & change4life - I came up with a whole bunch of weird stuff when I was a kid too - the list is long, so let me just say that my doll was a vampire. The killer monkeys thing...classic!

Just remember - no one is talking about you. Unless they are. But they're probably not.
There's your Confucian wisdom for today.

I was really isolated during the period where most of the disturbing incidents took place - in the middle of the woods living by myself...there weren't even any streetlights around. I could easily go without talking to anyone for a week except for the people at the beer store. It's possible that anyone who drank all day under those circumstances could go a bit bonkers.

I'm just feeling a little out of control I suppose - I'm not really sure what's going on. I hope it was mainly the alcohol because I'm doing pretty well with forcing my way through the 1st part of withdrawal. My anxiety level is definitely up though...and there are some very stressful events coming up in my life soon. I just want to make it through this intact.

Presstoe

Hi Bevin, yeah you know that the aliens and monsters LOVE people alone in the woods!

I like what you said here: "Just remember - no one is talking about you. Unless they are. But they're probably not." That's a good way to make us paranoid!!! Actually I often, very often think people are talking or conspiring against me. I'm a nanny and I guess I'm insecure, I want to do a good job so the least little hiccup or constructive criticism from one of the moms and I'm reeling in thoughts that I'm going to get fired...

Hey, does anyone remember the Simpsons episode where Barney gets sober? He decides for some reason to pilot a helicopter, but he's terrified. He says something like "Don't you know that every raging alcoholic is a coward?" something like that, and I think he ends up guzzling a six pack to land the thing. I'm afraid, lots of stuff scares me, I'd remember the episode better, but I was probably drinking when I watched it!

bevin

Classic Barney episode for sure!
I forgot to add an important part to the quote above cause it broke the flow a bit, but here goes: "Just remember - no one is talking about you. Unless they are. But they're probably not. But if they are, who gives a damn ding dong darn anyway?" Yeah - that's good stuff.
I hear you about being paranoid at work though - I remember I called over one of the managers at my job and said: I don't know what the situation is here, but if you're going to fire me it would be really great to have at least 3 weeks notice. She looked at me as if I was nuts - no one had any plans to fire me whatsoever so I guess I...handled that well, didn't I?

Presstoe

That sounds like something I would say! People seem to think I'm altogether, all the time, and that's hard, really hard when you know you haven't slept, or you were on a binge. I can see it, why can't they??? I don't make a habit of trying to be unprepared for work, but I feel bad when I am. People tell me I have an innocent face and that I look like I'm all responsible and it's a sham in some ways and a detriment because then I can get away with it.

I got in a fight last summer with an XGF, we were both drunk, I ended up with a broken nose and 2 black eyes. I felt like the A-hole nanny for sure, but all the moms embraced me, tried to help me, offered to pay hospital bills that didn't exist because I couldn't dare tell them I didn't see a doctor... I used to want my wings to fall off so I'd have to own up to things like everyone else, but lately I'd rather keep them and get better on my own without losing the wonderful people that love me. I'd be even more insecure if I lost the families I work for.

FBL

Towards the end of my drinking career I imagined all kinds of weird stuff. After I quit, those paranoid thoughts and feelings all went away.

PaleMale

In the film "The Lost Weekend" the final 3rd of the film portrays the main character in the alkie ward of a 40's hospital. At night the guys there all go crazy with delusions and stuff. Later in the film the main character suffers delusions (a bat eating a mouse and blood flowing down the walls, etc.)

It seems fairly common knowledge that later stage alcoholism can indeed create extremes in mood, paranoia, and delusions. Sometime hallucinations. This may be less often today due to modern medicine, or even cross-addictions. But what you are describing is certainly a part of the alcoholic "lexicon."

LaFemme

Um...geee...wow....thakns for the very vivid reminder to never drink again. I have horrid nightmares but never had hallucinations and only a mild bit of paranoia at the end that everyone could tell I had a problem which is basically because I got bad at hiding it.

recycle

I used the think I was charming and funny when I drank. That was pretty nutso.

bevin

@Presstoe - if you look anything like your avatar then you must be able to get away with a lot! I understand that feeling of 'holding it together' though - trying to pretend that everything is OK. Nobody really knows how bad my problem was...except maybe one friend I have who is also an alcoholic (recovered). He was surprised to hear that I was having blackouts though.
@Palemale - I haven't seen that movie - looks interesting. To tell you the truth, I never saw myself as a 'late stage alcoholic'. I thought of myself as somewhat functional - obviously I wasn't. I do think that I was (mostly) able to hide how much I was drinking because I'm not a drunk who does crazy stuff - and it took more and more to get to the point where I was actually slurring. Because I'm so reclusive I experienced a lot of things that no one was aware of.

ItWillBeWorthIt

Hi Bevin:

I have major delusions... BUT, I was on medication as well... I think it was the medication and then I got off of it and had withdrawals from the meds and made the delusions really bad.

I don't know if it was the alcohol or not... but the delusions were like so real to me, but they didn't really happen. It is hard to explain, but I know where you are coming from -- kinda scary. Do you take medication?

bevin

No - I'm not on any meds on a regular basis. I take Xanax when I have to go out and do something particularly stressful (I've had a pretty bad problem with panic attacks for a while), but I keep it to a minimum - I haven't had any in 4 or 5 days. My Dr. recently gave me a 2 week supply of Zopiclone to help me sleep when I told him that I wanted to try to quit drinking again. It's a pretty low dose, so I won't have any withdrawal symptoms other than insomnia maybe.
I only quit meds cold turkey once - Prozac. That was a long time ago. I really shouldn't have done it without telling anyone about it, because I was experiencing some pretty strong suicidal urges.
What kind of meds were you on?

Presstoe

What about having really good dreams? Like this:

A little while ago some guy was bothering me on my roof, he was a real jerk, trying to touch me and tease me. So I said HA and took a running flying leap off the roof, I looked down as I fell and loved the feeling of free fall after a story and a half, then I slowed and gently rested on the ground. I decided this was power and did the necessary running and leaping into flight mode.

Flew around the corner, the trees were in bloom and it was summer. I caught a glimpse of some dolls and books in a tree and swooped up for a better look. There were platforms and stairs, but no railings, this was the kind of tree house kids dream of, a really high, multi-level, multi-tree spanning dangerous one!!! While investigating, some kids came piling up the stairs, moms were on the lawn. I said hi to some of the kids, it must have been somebody's birthday. I walked down the stairs and some of the moms began to talk with me and inspite of my desire to show off flying to the kids, I didn't.

I was bored with the parents, they said one of the kids had a pretty bad cold, a kid I know but I won't use her name... Then when I had planned to fly away I noticed a terrible blister on my right outer wrist, I pulled the skin and it did that "burning here comes the puss- you should NOT have picked me" thing. And I woke up, in real life I had the EXACT same sensation on my wrist, so much I was studying it for a minute.

Those are the kind of dreams I have. I have friends who say they never dream, that's terrible. My mother used to have vivid dreams too, she also drank.