Dee74

Hi Ulle

Not sure what you mean by new developments - I still reckon the best 100% guaranteed cure for kindling remains not drinking

D

althea309

FreshStartOk

Kindling is definitely a thing. I get unbelievably bad withdrawal now compared to ten years ago. It really is true what they say, the older you get the less can drink.

WeThinkNot

I didn't know about kindling before I was in recovery but what surprised me is just how quickly the degeneration occurred for me.

I went to rehab in the summer of 2014, that was my first attempt at sobriety after over a decade of daily drinking and binging on the weekends. The only withdrawal symptoms I remember having were the sweats, it was surprisingly mild considering how much I had been drinking over the years.

I started drinking at the airport immediately after leaving rehab and my drinking got heavier and the hangovers were worse. In late 2015 I tried my hand at sobriety again and the withdrawal was much worse.

Then I fell off the wagon again and my drinking had progressed to 24/7. When I got clean for the final time on April 14, 2017 the subsequent withdrawal nearly killed me. I say it's my final withdrawal because I have zero doubt that another relapse will kill me.

I went over a decade of heavy alcohol abuse and managed to hold it together pretty well and the withdrawal was cakewalk. In the span of less than three years I was drinking around the clock and on the brink of death. That's why they say this is a progressive disease, sooner or later the wheels fall off and you're going full speed into that ravine.

ulle

I mean, some advancements in resetting the brain to a "normal" state.
Wish i stayed the functional alcoholic that i was and never went down the withdraw-relapse route. Never been a heavy drinker, never had a bad withdrawal - and bam, 2,5beers, racing heart, nausea, panik, brain fog.

I knew about the kindling thing for a while, but didnt take it serious enough, and now im screwed. Cause my goal never was to stop completly, but to cut down my drinking.
Tapered down and had a very mild withdrawal (if any) in January, relapsed, withdraw again, again very lite. Relapsed, tapered, withdraw again, stayed sober for few weeks, relapsed and my drinking got worse.
I paniked, went to hospital an withdraw from 10 beers, laid in the bed there and thought "no, thats not how you do it" but stayed, only had mild withdrawals, and after that i relapsed again and kindled. : (

DriGuy

This was every alcoholic's goal at one point in the downward spiral of their addiction. The story repeats itself and is constantly retold over and over again with hardly any variation. But every alcoholic wants to believe he will be the first to escape, while still drinking as much as he wants. This belief might well deserve to be one of the many definitions of an alcoholic and used in the final diagnosis of their condition.

Dee74

I don't know of any advances that can help you drink and not suffer kindling. You;ve probably guessed we're not really the right audience for that anyway

I think you're only 'screwed' if you decide to keep on drinking, to be honest.

Once you hit that point, trying to drink and not suffer kindling is like being profoundly allergic to something but not being willing to give it up.

It will make you suffer dreadfully...or you can just adapt to a new - and I think better - life..

There are many of us here who defined ourselves by our drinking who now revel in a sober life.

It's a million times better.
Why not give it a go?

ulle

"I don't know of any advances that can help you drink and not suffer kindling. You;ve probably guessed we're not really the right audience for that anyway "
Well, true. Sorry to ask the "wrong" question.

I know i screwed it up, i had years, knowing my problem. Last winter some tragic happenend and i lost focus on my real problem.

I missed the point in time to jump of the wagon last year. So now i have only two options: suffer or live a sober life.

The tragic here is, that my attempts to get better made it worse and worse.
I didnt define my goal, and so theres no wonder that i didnt succeed.

Any tip for my first few sober months?

DriGuy

I'm not sure about that. The way Kindling was explained to me was that the downward spiral of alcoholism continues and gets worse whether you stop drinking or not. If this is true, your attempts didn't make it worse. Your resistance just continued to weaken and your alcoholism just got worse. My guess is that when you started drinking again, you misinterpreted the worse-ness of your disease as due to quitting when in fact it was just alcoholism's normal progression.

A goal is important as well as a plan. They can be as complicated as you make them or as simple as not taking another drink ever. In addition to a plan, knowledge of various triggers, putting yourself at risk, how kindling works, and the importance of mindfulness and vigilance are really helpful. Much of that can be gained by hanging out here.

Fearlessat50

I remember first reading this thread way back when I was still a lurker at SR, still caught in the quit/relapse cycle. It was so helpful to know about kindling and read all about it. I’m now 2-1/2 years sober. I will never go back to any amount of alcohol, not even a drop. Life is so much better without it.

lunar

Dollar store ashtrays were designed for frogs.

ulle

I tend to disagree.
i was struggling with my alkolism, but i knew what i was doing, how much i can take without much harm, how i can taper down to only a few drinks in the evening and all this.
It really began to worsen, wenn ich tried to stop and relapsed - i had bad rebounds from quitting. and relapsing, of course. lost the steadiness.
if i could start again in january, i would take much more time to taper down. like weeks. and get baclofen (which i got now, i hope it helps with the cravings) and then take a looong time of. but i was desperate and took benzos for withdrawing, mixed them with alkohol, took z-drugs for sleep and raised my tolerance.

the real downslope began with a weekly bender, at a point, i gave myself up - a problem i never fixed is that i cant cope with beeing left by a girl i love and who loves me. and even there, if i were not trying to be abstinent, hiding my drinking for this reason, but drink my usal bottle of wine in plain sight, this all never happens.

if i chill and take it slowly, let the drug go in love, i wouldn't have developed this kind of physical dependence (so quickly).
the cycle at least got sped up significantly by stopping and replapsing and my halfish attempts.

even before (and even after) the first rehab, i could have gotten out pretty much intact, and not become this disfuntional guy i am right now. but i had my mind clouded with others things. and didnt take my time, again.
i panicked, made some bad desicions : /

anyhow, i waited too long to do something, never learnt to focus on the real problems of my life, making decisions and stick with them. and here i am


Ok, i try hanging out. thanks for this. i will try to make a plan and set a goal.

Dee74

If you read back to the initial post in this thread it's a pretty good short summary of what kindling is, and what tolerance is.

D

ulle

what happened to me:

after my first clinical detox with no tapering down i felt fine, relapsed after 11 day, had a beer, craved for more, lost control, had another one, and opened a third, threw all away i had left to not get to much - so i had 2,5 beers, felt great for a while, then i fell asleep, got racing heart, slept really long.

since then its changed

i have a drink, slow and controlled. no rush for more. i get a buzz for a few minutes.
than i get ringing ears, muscle pain, weakness, agitation, sleeplessness, blurred vision. it really feels like im allergic to alcohol now.

but because im addicted, i keep trying to drink, i want the feeling back a good glas of wine gave me, but its gone.

DriGuy

That's what happened to me. At the end of my drinking, the buzz lasted but a couple of minutes, and no matter how much I drank after that, I couldn't get it back.

sugarbear1

when our tolerance changes quickly, we're at a serious turning point......Red Flag here! Maybe stop fighting the fact that you can't drink safely? Surrender and move forward in sobriety?

ulle

my tolerance changed few month ago. i didnt take that serious enough.
i focused on other things. things that were already gone.

i have to move forward, true.

one thing worries me very much. i dont feel like myself anymore.
i lost contact to my past. last two months are gone like they never happened. i dont feel present in the world anymore.
that happened after the 2,5 beer withdrawal
any help with this?

WeThinkNot

The only help I can offer is to recommend that you stop drinking completely.

Once you cross that invisible line there is no going back. You're never going to have a pleasant buzz again. Ever.

It's only going to get worse for you if you continue drinking. Instead of overanalyzing the situation it would be more beneficial to you to focus that energy on working a program of recovery.

FreshStartOk

I think I've hit that invisible line. Day 2 sober and although I feel like hell and have zero concentration, I never want to drink again. I dip taper a bit which I think has got me out of the danger zone I've known in the past - extreme muscle spams and dizzyness on the edge of seizures. But man the last few drinks gave no pleasure at all.

I can't drink anyway it's far too dangerous. I read that distressing DUI case, hitting people and maybe (hopefully not) and going to jail, and I will be in that situation one way or another if I continue. My families gone through an unpleasant tragedy recently, I can't put them through another.

ulle

i'm an analytic person and i wanna know what happened.
yesterday i didn't take my medication i got in second detox and i feel much more myself today. and yesterday is still there. so thats better now.

last month i had like 6 beers total. and nearly no joy out of it.
what i have to do now is to is to accept that i screwed it up/that that happend to me, depends on the view, and move on with live.

it's no easy, i miss drinking, i miss the good drinker part of myself. the other side i dont miss and i see what i did to me the last years and it makes me mad. i lost the love of my life, my job, my youth, my freedom, my joy.