effortjoy

Day 17 and I feel awful. Emotionally I feel much better about my life, but I have been exhausted since I quit. On top of the exhaustion I now have the flu. Did anyone else go through this in the early days? I feel like my immune system is so weak now and I really need my energy back soon. Crazy how alcohol energizes some of us so that we only feel 'normal' when drinking. When does it get better?

sugarbear1

How long did you drink?

Seriously, the damage we do to our entire body is incredible and we get numbed by drinking, so we don't really feel what the true effects are until we stop.

give time time

You will go through different changes, at least I have, in the first year of recovery. At almost 14 months, I am still changing a bit, too. I have my moments of clarity and my moments of what I call "learning disabilities" too!

Keep strong, stay stopped, keep healing!

covrecover

The reason I stopped was that routine blood tests showed I was severely anaemic, had low white blood cell counts, and low platelet counts. Further investigation showed signs my liver was being abused.

Often when some one drinks heavily they do not get enough nutrition. At present I'm on supplements for Folic acid, and Iron. You need to make sure you get enough B12 as well.

Another problem with heavy drinking is that is stops your bone marrow doing its job. Your bone marrow is what produces the red blood and white blood cells. This can mean your resistance to infections, is much lower than it should be.

So even if you were eating properly you bone marrow may well not be working properly. As far as I understand your bone marrow should recover once you stop drinking. This, again as far as I understand, can take about 3 weeks.

I would suggest seeing you Doctor.

Cov.

nonblondechef

That exhaustion sucks hard. My first 3 months were SR, work, eat, sleep. Nearing 6 months now and I take a nap every chance I get. This from someone who would work 12 hours straight, drink and be an idiot fo 6 hours or so, rarely eat (can't kill the buzz) blackout, pass out for a few hours then get up and repeat the cycle. Did this for the past 7 years non stop. Sugarbear is so on the money here - give time time. Great job on your success, effortjoy - you won't regret this journey!!

Dee74

It's very very common for people to get sick early in recovery EJ.

I hope you'll feel better soon - and like others have said - consult with your Dr if you're concerned or you think you need supplements etc

D

covrecover

Problem with supplements is that most of the time you need them you do not know it.

I would suggest seeing the doctor who can arrange normal blood count tests. These should show if you aneamic and your white blood cell count. These give an indication if something more is needed.

Cov.

Stevie1

Eustress, aka "good" stress:
Eustress - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I am flattened by exhaustion at less than one month sober this time around. It's awful...and common, from what I understand.

DoinThis

Month mark for me, yes I was exhausted too. 7 weeks now and I'm more energetic than ever with the odd bad day. It feels like it takes forever to feel good but really a few weeks isn't that long. I drank loads of coffee and ate loads of sugar to feel normal in the beginning. Keep going

P.S I started the same thread at the beginning so I def feel your pain