What's a hangover like for you?
 

I'm on my 6th day of being sober. And tonight I am having strong urges to drink! Well they have come and slightly gone-after taking a bite of a yellow cupcake with chocolate frosting! But I feel like tonight is going to be a test for me. My son is going to bed early, and I'm going to be unwinding from my busy day.

So my distraction for tonight will be reading what a hangover is like for all of you! Plus lots of tea maybe.

My hangovers are soooo horrible, I have no tolerance for even two drinks. I always have a hangover....but MAYBE it's cause I ALWAYS drink too much and I never actually only have two drinks, huh that was kind of an epiphany!!!!

My hangovers include waking up around 5am feeling like someone poured cement into my veins. Or like I was running as fast as I could toward a brick wall and hit it at full speed. Then I lay in bed unable to go back to sleep, my body aches. My head throbs everywhere. My neck is stiff from passing out in an uncomfortable position and not moving all night. My stomach is queasy, and worst of all I'm completely depressed with how I lost control of my drinking AGAIN.

Then as the day unfolds, I eat everything and anything unhealthy for me. Which makes me feel worse. I sit on the couch and pout, not wanting to play with my kids or do everyday things. I just want to go back to sleep...which doesn't always take away the pain either. I feel worthless and hopeless all day. And realize how I'm punishing my kids for my selfishness.

Okay that made me feel better, could you tell me what being hungover feels like for you?

Hey seethroughblue congrats on 6 days!!! proud of you! I too had children I totally neglected when hungover and my son is autistic which requires a sober mind......Lets see my organs ached my head hurt so bad it would make me vomitt(sorry) I shook all day at work I couldnt even write a sentence anymore. I was cranky as hell and obnoxious. OK now after being sober a little over a year my liver enzimes are back to normal my son is happier than anyone has ever seen (even his teachers have said so) I laugh I cry I feel! I have never in my life woke up greatful to be alive untill just a few months ago. Yeah this sober thing is worth the fight!!

Let's run down the list shall we?

1. Headache
2. Queasy stomach calmed by greasy food
3. Bloodshot eyes, needed visine before work
4. Bad breath
5. Aching muscles
6. Irritability

Lovely.

Congrats on 6 days.

A lot of people don't realize that hangovers are actually a mild form of alcohol withdrawal. This is why taking a morning drink actually makes you feel better - the alcohol is provided so the body stops or slows the withdrawal process.

Of course, this is progressive, and if you are like me it got to the point where I could be on the 6th drink of the day and still be in withdrawal. Thank God I don't have to live like that anymore.

I haven't had a hangover in over three years, and don't plan on it again. Yuck! Course hangovers never got me sober..got me to say I was never drinking again, but that was a joke.

My hangovers became more bearable as the frequency that I drank increased. Sure, there were a few times that my head hurt, my stomach felt queasy etc, but for the most part, I was just lethargic and felt run-down. That became normal for me. I didn't like feeling that way but it didn't stop me from drinking. In fact, I probably would have given up the drinking sooner, had my hangovers been terrible on a regular basis. In hindsight, I wish they had been worse...

For a long time I didn't really get bad hangovers, then towards the end of my drinking I always got hangovers and it was more and more obvious that it was withdrawal. I would get heart palpitations and terrible anxiety, bloodshot eyes, shaky hands, unquenchable thirst. Then as soon as I felt the least bit better I'd say "well maybe I'll have a little drink, it'll make me feel better".

It felt like a giant shadow of doom was hanging over me, but it didn't make it any easier to stop.

wow feralheart, that's actually exactly how I would feel too! I didn't realize it was closer to withdrawal than a hangover. That's kind of eye opening.

Thank you everyone!!! I got through another night drink free. And actually my cravings went away shortly after I posted this, so it wasn't even a struggle. I appreciate each one of you for helping me on my journey.

Waking up with a massive headache, sick stomach, and hating myself to the point of wanting to die and get it over with.:(

But I've had no hangovers in almost two years and will never put myself in a position to have any more.:)

This "How Hangovers Work" article is pretty interesting. HowStuffWorks "How Hangovers Work"

My last few hangovers in the previous few months were like hell on earth. I would wake up about 2 hours after passing out, my heart racing, sweating and feeling like the world was going to end. I'd be awake from 2am to 6am then have to get up and go to work where I would have non-stop panic attacks until 2 or 3 pm... Then I'd leave work at 5pm and buy more booze to have a couple crazy drunk hours posting crap on facebook. Sounds like a good time right?

YES. Exactly how it was for me, including the 4 hours of no sleep. Toss and turn and toss and turn with that impending doom feeling. Hell on earth. Guilt, shame, remorse, bewilderment, suicidal. Yes. All of that. Lord please keep us from ever going back there!!

I could assign some symptoms to my really bad hangovers but honestly after drinking so much for so long, I stopped identifying my symptoms as hangovers so I didn't have to feel bad about my drinking the next day. I just took enough Pepto, Ibuprofen and caffeine to "neutralize" the hangover the next day so I could maintain the belief that I didn't have any sort of drinking problem.

I haven't had a hangover for 255 days and don't plan on ever having one again. Towards the end instead of dealing with a hangover I just started drinking again....dumb, dumb, dumb. I was living on basically antacid and booze, which is no way to live and a pretty crappy way to die.

i would go straight into withdrawl everyday. The skin crawling was the worst. Then there was the sense that Iwas going to have a heart attack. THEN, stupid me would go get MORE alcohol to kill the pain, just so it could start all over again

30Sober, drinking and then getting on Facebook is a big mistake! Hahaha! At least, it was for me :-/. I can't count how many posts I've had to delete after a drunken night...

they stopped becoming the hangovers ,that early in my career i could just shrug off. they became something else altogether with tremors, horrible mental anguish, gloom and general feeling of unwell.. its what drove me to stop..i started getting quite scared.. i couldnt drink and i coulndt not drink, just stuck in some twilight zone of misery!

Nice job on six days!!! ... The last part of my drinking career was spent avoiding hangovers (ok, avoiding withdrawal) ... so I would drink in the morning, overnight, always. Before that, like many posts above, anguish, doom, anxiety, panic, TIRED, nasal, sicky, feeling worthless, lethargic, depressed, joyless, GUILTY.

ME, ME, ME

Why do we do this to ourselves?

[QUOTE=omenapt;3145027]they stopped becoming the hangovers ,that early in my career i could just shrug off. they became something else altogether with tremors, horrible mental anguish, gloom and general feeling of unwell.. its what drove me to stop..i started getting quite scared.. i couldnt drink and i coulndt not drink, just stuck in some twilight zone of misery![/QUOTE]


That describes my constant withdrawals.:(